REESE  LIBRARY 

OF  THK 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
Deceived 


^Accession  No.  / 6  /  0  J     .   Class  No. 


t  173 

C.S- 


PKEFACEV 


HAVING  come  to  that  time  of  life  when  one  does 
not  readily  assume  new  cares,  the  author  of  these 
papers  has  asked  me  to  arrange  them,  to  make  such 
slight  modifications  as  seemed  needful,  and  to  answer 
for  their  safe  conduct  through  the  press. 

Aside  from  the  pleasure  of  serving  Judge  Cham 
berlain,  if  I  may,  it  gives  me  great  satisfaction  to  be 
instrumental  in  bringing  this  volume  to  the  light. 
The  least  among  many  persistent  friends,  I  have 
long  thought  that  these  scattered  fragments  should 
be  sheaved  in  some  permanent  and  accessible  form. 
In  this  case  the  "  solicitations  of  others  "  is  no  empty 
expression,  behind  which  timorous  authorship  is  often 
glad  to  protect  itself.  It  would  be  easy,  if  it  were 
desirable,  to  produce  from  letters,  written  by  men  of 
eminence,  urgent  requests  that  a  larger  public  might 
be  given  the  opportunity  to  become  acquainted  with 
material  heretofore  only  available  to  the  few  through 
limited  editions.  Of  one  review,  here  reprinted,  an 
historian  of  note,  writing  to  an  editor,  says  that  it  is 
the  best  piece  of  criticism  made  in  this  country  "  in 
our  time ; "  and  a  well-known  statesman,  in  express 
ing  his  regret  that  Judge  Chamberlain  had  not  earlier 
devoted  himself  to  historical  effort,  announces  his 


iv  PREFACE 

belief  that  an  adequate  interpretation  of  the  history 
of  New  England  would  have  been  the  sure  result. 

Without  an  exception  the  contents  of  this  volume 
were  written  by  one  who,  up  to  his  sixtieth  year,  had 
been  mainly  engrossed  in  professional  cares  at  the 
bar  and  on  the  bench.  He  had,  however,  studied  and 
thought  wholly  for  himself,  where  most  men  talk 
and  print  the  thoughts  of  other  people.  As  a  result, 
when  he  came  to  express  himself  for  the  first  time 
in  print  in  his  full  maturity,  he  had  learned  to  dis 
card  all  irrelevancies,  and  to  view  men  and  events 
without  prejudice  and  violence.  I  do  not  readily 
recall  another  instance  of  so  long  a  reticence  on  the 
part  of  one  naturally  inclined  to  forcible  expression. 

I  especially  desire  to  call  attention  to  the  unusual 
substance  of  these  essays  —  since  essays  they  really 
are ;  for  although  most  of  them  are  nominally  ad 
dresses,  they  are  not  the  addresses  of  an  orator  who 
merely  graces  an  occasion.  To  have  forced  the  recog 
nition  within  a  decade  of  a  fresh  hypothesis  in  Amer 
ican  history,  beset  as  our  estimates  of  that  history 
are  with  reserves  and  mannerisms,  is  no  slight  achieve 
ment.  To-day,  however,  historians,  when  they  cast 
up  their  balances,  have  to  reckon  in  Judge  Cham 
berlain's  opinions  on  ecclesiasticism  as  a  factor  in 
pre-re volution ary  affairs.  I  cite  this  as  one  only  of 
several  important  contributions  to  historical  thought. 

Another  side  of  Judge  Chamberlain's  life  and 
character  is  seen  in  the  papers  standing  toward  the 
end  of  the  volume,  in  which  he  has  expressed  his 


PREFACE  v 

views  on  literature  and  on  the  aesthetic  and  poetic 
considerations  of  life.  His  defense  of  imaginative 
literature  is  in  gracious  contrast  to  the  severity  of 
his  attitude  toward  emotional  and  merely  popular 
views  of  history. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  the  literary  reviewer  will 
find  in  these  pages  repetitions  of  cherished  theories ; 
but  that  is  almost  inevitably  incidental  to  papers  of 
such  a  character,  and  it  has  not  seemed  necessary  to 
bring  everything  to  the  gauge  of  consistency  and  per 
fect  form. 

My  task  has  hardly  been  more  than  that  of  select 
ing  these  papers,  presumably  of  greatest  general  in 
terest,  from  among  numerous  others,  and  of  grouping 
these  efforts  in  what  I  have  supposed  to  be  the  most 
effective  way ;  but  in  doing  this  there  has  revived 
within  me  a  sense  of  obligation  to  a  man  who  insensi 
bly  steered  me  away  from  unsubstantial  methods  and 
showed  me  the  value  of  moderation,  candor,  and  entire 
independence  of  judgment. 

No  attempt  is  made  to  give  citations  to  many  recent 
articles  and  replies  to  some  of  the  more  controversial 
papers,  as,  for  instance,  the  "Authentication  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence." 

Four  of  the  articles  have  been  printed,  one  each  in 
the  "Andover  Review,"  the  "Dartmouth  Literary 
Monthly,"  the  "  Century  Magazine "  and  the  "  Na 
tion,"  and  appear  in  this  volume  by  the  courtesy  of 
the  editors. 

"  The  Revolution  Impending,"  a  paper  of  the  first 


vi  PREFACE 

importance,  is  here  reluctantly  omitted ;  but  it  may 
be  found  in  vol.  vi.  of  the  "  Narrative  and  Critical 
History  of  America."  It  has  even  been  thought  the 
strongest  of  Judge  Chamberlain's  writings.  Charles 
Borgeaud,  in  his  "  Etablissement  et  Revision  des 
Constitutions  en  Amerique  et  en  Europe,"  says  of  a 
passage  which  he  quotes  at  length,  "  It  would  be 
difficult  to  indicate  more  clearly  the  real  character 
of  the  American  Revolution." 

LINDSAY  SWIFT. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

JOHN  ADAMS,  THE  STATESMAN  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLU 
TION    1 

AUTHENTICATION  OF  THE  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE.  97 
CONSTITUTIONAL  RELATIONS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  TO 

THE  ENGLISH  GOVERNMENT 135 

REMARKS  ON  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 167 

GENESIS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN 187 

POLITICAL  MAXIMS 229 

REMARKS  BEFORE  THE  SONS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLU 
TION,  CONCORD,  APRIL  19, 1894 243 

PALFREY'S  PEOPLE  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 253 

MCMASTER'S    HISTORY    OF    THE    PEOPLE    OF  THE  UNITED 

STATES 269 

JOSIAH   QUINCY,    THE   GREAT   MAYOR 297 

DANIEL  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 329 

REMARKS  AT   THE   DEDICATION  OF  A   STATUE  OF  DANIEL 

WEBSTER,  CONCORD,  N.  H.,  JUNE  17,  1886 343 

A  GLANCE  AT  DANIEL  WEBSTER 357 

LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  IN  POETRY 369 

THE  SCOPE  OF  A  COLLEGE  LIBRARY.  ADDRESS  AT  THE  DEDI 
CATION  OF  WILSON  HALL,  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE  LIBRARY.    389 
THE  OLD  AND  THE  NEW  ORDER  IN  NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE 
AND   LETTERS.     ADDRESS   AT   THE  DEDICATION    OF  THE 
BROOKS  LIBRARY  BUILDING,  BRATTLEBOROUGH    ....    427 
IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE  IN  PUBLIC  LIBRARIES.    ADDRESS 
AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  WOODS  MEMORIAL  LIBRARY 
BUILDING,  BARRB 467 


JOHN  ADAMS 

THE  STATESMAN  OF  THE  AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 

AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  WEBSTER  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY 
JANUARY  18,  1884 


JOHN  ADAMS 

THE  STATESMAN  OF  THE  AMERICAN 
REVOLUTION 


JOHN  ADAMS  entered  public  life  with  the  first  ses 
sion  of  the  Continental  Congress,  which  met 
at  Philadelphia,  September  5,  1774,  and  re-    up0n 
mained  in  the  service  of  the  country  almost    Public 
uninterruptedly  until  the  close  of  his  admin 
istration,  March  4,  1801.     Of  this  period,  nine  years 
were  covered  by  the  American  Revolution,  in  which 
he  took  a  leading  part  and  held  it  with  undiminished 
zeal  and  constancy  until  the  Treaty  of  Peace  in  1783. 
It  is  this  part  of  his  life  of  which  I  am  to  give  some 
account. 

His  influence  during  this  period  of  national  history 
was  mainly  due  to  his  ability ;  but  he  was  fortunate 
in  the  time  at  which  he  intervened  in  public  affairs,  as 
also  in  the  character  of  the  colony  from  which  he  was 
a  delegate  to  the  Congress. 

Of  his  great  contemporaries,  Franklin  was  not  a 
member  until  the  next  spring,  and  after  a  little  more 
than  a  year's  service  he  went  abroad  on  his  French 
mission  ;  neither  was  Jefferson,  who  in  later  years,  as 
a  political  rival,  drew  the  great  body  of  the  people  to 
his  way  of  thinking  on  national  subjects  ;  nor  until 
eight  years  had  passed  away  was  Hamilton,  of  marvel 
ous  genius  for  statesmanship.  Washington  entered 


4         JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

the  Congress  with  John  Adams,  and  on  his  suggestion 
a  year  later  was  transferred  from  civil  life  to  the 
head  of  the  army. 

Of  the  Congress  of  1774,  Edward  Kutledge  and 
John  Jay  were  younger  than  John  Adams  ;  but  the 
greater  part  of  the  delegates  were  of  an  age  which 
brings  disqualifications  for  parliamentary  leadership. 
John  Adams  was  thirty-nine  years  old,  and  in  the 
prime  of  his  great  powers.  Peculiarities  of  temper, 
which  in  later  years  impaired  his  influence,  at  this 
time  were  a  help  rather  than  a  hindrance.  It  must 
also  be  counted  as  his  good  fortune  that  he  came  from 
Massachusetts  Bay ;  for  though  that  colony  was  re 
garded  with  distrust  and  dislike  by  the  middle  and 
southern  colonies,  there  were  facts  in  her  history,  as 
well  as  something  in  the  character  of  her  people,  which 
gave  potency  to  her  voice  in  the  national  councils  and 
weight  to  John  Adams  as  her  leading  representative. 

Under  such  circumstances  John  Adams  entered 
Congress,  which  he  attended  through  the  sessions  of 
four  years.  During  this  period  of  revolution,  which 
was  also  the  period  of  necessary  constitutional  recon 
struction,  he  rendered  services  such  as  no  other  states 
man  rendered,  and  more  widely,  more  profoundly,  and, 
unless  present  indications  prove  fallacious,  more  per 
manently  impressed  the  political  institutions  of  the 
country  than  any  other  man  who  has  ever  lived  in  it ; 
and  by  reason  of  these  services  he  became  entitled  to 
rank  as  the  preeminent  statesman  of  the  Revolution. 

My  object  is  to  show  by  what  endowments,  by  what 
acquisitions,  and  by  what  use  of  his  powers,  can  be 
justly  claimed  for  John  Adams  the  first  place  among 
such  statesmen  as  Samuel  Adams,  John  Jay,  Thomas 
Jefferson,  and  even  Benjamin  Franklin. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION         5 

There  were  no  congressional  reporters  in  those  days. 
The  members  were  pledged  to  secrecy.  The  journals 
are  neither  full  nor  accurate,  and  even  John  Adams's 
own  diary  fails  us  at  some  of  the  most  critical  and 
interesting  points  ;  yet  his  services  in  their  results 
are  historically  clear  and  not  difficult  of  estimation. 
It  is  more  difficult,  however,  to  estimate  the  character 
of  the  statesman  who  rendered  these  services;  for 
though  his  purposes  were  single  and  his  methods 
simple  and  direct,  his  character  was  complex.  In  cer 
tain  aspects  it  seems  to  belong  to  no  known  type  of 
the  English  race,  nor  can  it  be  described  in  a  phrase. 

Here  was  a  man  born  and  bred  in  a  narrow,  pro 
vincial  sphere,  remote  from  the  centres  of  Hig 
liberal  thought,  untraveled,  and  separated  charac- 
by  the  ocean  from  those  movements  which  so  1 
powerfully  affected  European  society  in  the  middle  of 
the  eighteenth  century  ;  and  yet,  in  rare  combination 
and  large  measure,  he  included  in  his  character,  and 
exhibited  by  his  life  and  action,  the  best  influences  of 
the  Reformation,  in  which  those  movements  had  their 
remote  origin.  Acknowledging  the  supremacy  of  con 
science,  and  yielding  implicit  obedience  to  the  claims 
of  natural  and  revealed  religion,  he  recognized  its  es 
sential  unity  under  all  its  varied  forms  of  manifesta 
tion,  and  was  free  from  the  slightest  trace  of  bigotry 
or  sectarian  narrowness.  He  believed  in  civil  and 
religious  liberty  as  inherent  rights  of  the  people,  but 
under  subjection,  as  are  the  forces  of  nature,  to  an 
intelligent  and  ever-active  principle  of  law,  which  is 
Milton's  idea  of  .liberty.  He  was  a  provincial,  with 
all  the  traditions  of  provincialism ;  and  yet,  undenia 
bly,  he  was  the  foremost  advocate  and  most  efficient 
promoter  of  nationality.  Before  the  colonies  had  de- 


6        JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

dared  themselves  independent,  and  for  the  purpose  of 
promoting  that  measure,  he  advocated  the  formation 
of  state  constitutions,  and  the  severing  of  one  tie 
which  bound  them  to  the  mother  country ;  and  later, 
when  the  great  Declaration  had  gone  forth,  he  strove 
for  a  closer  union  and  the  semblance,  at  least,  of  a 
national  government  under  the  Articles  of  Confedera 
tion.  Finally,  when  the  war  had  closed  and  the  terms 
of  peace  were  under  discussion,  he,  more  than  any 
other,  secured  to  the  nation  the  old  colonial  rights  in 
the  fisheries  of  Newfoundland,  opened  to  navigation 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  when  under  doubtful 
jurisdiction,  pushed  the  national  boundaries  from  the 
Alleghanies  to  the  great  river,  from  the  Ohio  to  the 
central  line  of  the  northern  lakes,  from  the  Kennebec 
to  the  St.  Croix,  and  yielded  the  Canadas  only  to  the 
necessities  of  peace. 

It  is  an  original,  not  an  acquired,  character  we 
have  to  consider.  His  breadth  of  understanding  and 
liberal  views  were  not  exhibited  for  the  first  time  after 
he  had  left  his  native  province  for  the  wider  theatre 
of  national  activity,  nor  when  he  had  been  in  con 
tact  with  speculative  thought  in  Europe,  but  while 
yet  a  boy  musing  upon  life  and  his  possible  relations 
to  it. 

John  Adams  possessed  two  faculties  in  a  degree 
which  distinguished  him  among  his  countrymen,  and 
made  him  preeminently  serviceable  in  a  period  of 
revolution,  —  the  historic  imagination  which  devel 
ops  nationality  from  its  germ,  and  clear  intuitions  of 
organic  constitutional  law.  In  these  faculties  he  has 
never  been  surpassed  by  any  American  statesman,  nor 
equaled  save  by  him  whose  name  needs  no  mention  in 
this  presence.  There  is  evidence  that  from  his  youth 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION         1 

he  was  accustomed  to  trace  the  growth  and  develop 
ment  of  nationality  in  the  great  epochs  of  Saxon  and 
English  history  and  to  project  it  under  new  conditions 
in  America ;  and  that  from  the  earliest  days  of  the 
Revolution  he  saw  in  the  determining  force  of  race 
tendencies,  united  with  free,  independent  government, 
the  inevitable  greatness  of  his  country.  This  gave 
unity  and  consistency  to  his  whole  public  career,  in 
which  respect  he  stands  nearly  alone  among  public 
men  of  equal  rank.  It  also  gave  him  faith  when  oth 
ers  doubted,  courage  when  they  quailed  in  the  face 
of  danger,  and  constancy  when  they  lost  heart  from 
disasters.  In  the  gloomy  days  which  succeeded  the 
defeats  at  Brandywine  and  Germantown,  when  Wash 
ington  and  his  army  escaped  destruction  only  by  the 
unaccountable  remissness  of  Howe,  John  Adams  said, 
"  These  disasters  will  hurt  us,  but  not  ruin  us."  He 
had  unshaken  confidence  in  the  course  of  free  em 
pire.1 

If  we  now  look  at  some  of  those  moral  characteris 
tics  which  marked  him  as  a  statesman,  we  shall  find 
certain  race  traits  which  he  seems  to  have  inherited 
immediately  from  his  British  ancestry,  rather  than  by 
transmission  through  his  colonial  progenitors.  He 
possessed  the  pluck,  courage,  and  bull-dog  tenacity 
which  we  ascribe  to  the  English,  and  which  all 
through  their  history  has  stood  them  in  such  stead  in 
desperate  civil  and  military  encounters,  often  chang 
ing  lost  fields  to  fields  of  victory ;  and,  on  the  other 

1  At  a  meeting  of  the  American  Academy  in  1807,  at  the  request  of 
Dr.  Abiel  Holmes,  John  Adams  wrote  on  a  slip  of  paper,  now  in  my 
possession,  the  following  lines  which  he  had  seen  inscribed  in  some 
forgotten  place  :  — 

"  The  eastern  nations  sink  ;  their  glory  ends, 
And  Empire  rises  where  the  sun  descends." 


8        JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

hand,  there  was  no  trace  in  his  composition  of  the 
craft,  cunning,  or  selfishness  which  narrow  circum 
stances  and  a  hundred  years  of  contest  with  a 
treacherous  and  skulking  foe  are  supposed,  justly  or 
unjustly,  to  have  engrafted  on  the  New  England 
character  of  his  day. 

There  was  no  strategy  in  his  nature.  His  path  led 
straight  to  his  object,  and  his  movements  in  it  were 
simple  and  direct,  though  not  always  free  from  osten 
tation  and  self-assertion,  not  easily  understood  in  so 
great  a  man.  In  his  victories  we  perceive  no  special 
skill  in  plan  or  science  of  battle  ;  but  his  eye  was 
quick  to  detect  the  stress  of  the  engagement,  and 
there  his  honest  blows  fell  fast  and  heavy.  How 
clearly  he  saw  the  inevitableness  of  the  issue,  and 
how  pluckily  for  more  than  a  twelvemonth,  in  Con 
gress,  he  fought  the  fight  of  the  Declaration ;  and 
against  what  odds  —  for  nothing  is  now  more  clear 
than  this,  that  neither  the  Congress  nor  the  people 
as  a  whole  were  quite  ripe  for  it.  He  carried  the 
measure  by  sheer  force  and  persistence ;  and  he  was 
right.  Yet  it  was  one  of  those  almost  hopeless  strug 
gles  in  which  victory  forms  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
human  progress. 

This  directness  of  aim  and  impetuosity  of  move 
ment  were  not  the  conventional  methods,  either  in 
the  legislation  or  the  diplomacy  of  his  day,  and  they 
subjected  him  to  some  animadversion  from  those 
who  respected  his  honesty  and  ability.  While  on  his 
Dutch  mission,  in  1781,  to  procure  a  recognition  of 
our  independence  and  to  effect  a  loan,  he  shocked  the 
old  diplomatists  by  his  memorial  to  their  High  Mighti 
nesses  and  the  Prince  of  Orange.  This  was  issued 
against  the  advice,  and  even  remonstrance,  of  our 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION          9 

French  allies.1  But  it  led  to  ultimate  success.  I 
think  it  will  be  found  that  John  Adams  was  always 
right  in  his  well-considered  judgments,  and  usually  so 
in  his  measures ;  if  any  part  of  his  conduct  was  open 
to  criticism,  it  was  his  manner.2 

When  the  cause  of  independence  and  nationality 
demanded  an  orator,  —  not  brilliant  declaimers  like 
Henry,  Lee,  and  Rutledge,  but  one  whov  with  capacity 
for  affairs,  could  bring  powerful  and  intrepid  advo 
cacy  into  council  and  passionate  appeals  to  patriotic 
sentiment,  —  such  an  orator  was  found  in  John  Ad 
ams,  the  Colossus  of  debate.3 

These  special  gifts  were  made  effective  by  a  vigor 
ous  and  comprehensive  intellect  and  high  courage. 
All  his  powers  were  trained,  and  every  opportunity 
for  improvement  embraced,  with  an  assiduity  not 
common  in  America  at  that  day. 

John  Adams  at  his  best  was  always  a  statesman  ; 
as  a  politician  he  made  a  very  indifferent  figure.  In 
his  country's  ends  he  always  succeeded  —  always ; 
and  in  his  own  quite  likely  would  always  have  failed, 

1  When  copies  of  it  reached  America,  Madison,  writing1  to  Pendle- 
ton,  said,  "  I  enclose  a  copy  of  Mr.  Adams's  memorial  to  the  States 
General.     I  wish  I  could   have   informed  you  of  its  being  lodged   in 
the  archives  of  their  High  Mightinesses,  instead  of  presenting  it  to 
you  in  print."  —  Madison's  Letters,  i.  54. 

2  The  memorial  above   referred   to  was  not  promulgated  without 
mature  consideration   of   the   whole   case.     Writing  a  year  later  to 
Francis  Dana,  our  then  unaccredited  minister  to  St.  Petersburg,  Adams 
said,  "  I  see  no  objection  against  your  attempt,  as  you  propose,  to  find 
out  the  real  disposition  of  the  Empress,  or  her  ministers.   You  cannot 
take  any  noisy  measures  like  those  I  have  taken  here.     The  form  of 
the  government  forbids  it."  — Works,  vii.  544. 

3  The  present  estimate  of  Adams  does  not  differ  widely  from  Ban 
croft's  ;  but  it  was  formed  by  a  study  of  Adams's  history  and  writings 
without  reference  to  Bancroft,  who  has,  it  seems  to  me,  overlooked 
Adams's  most  marked  characteristic,  — his  historic  imagination. 


10      JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

had  he  sought  any  that  were  merely  personal.  His 
much-derided  administration,  though  conducted  under 
great  embarrassments,  was  useful  to  the  country,  and 
not  without  its  period  of  national  glory ;  and  the 
measure  which  threw  his  cabinet  into  confusion  was 
a  bold  stroke  of  statesmanship,  conceived  and  per 
sisted  in  without  regard  to  party  or  personal  interests. 
Ambitious,  vain,  egotistical,  self-confident,  and  jealous, 
—  for  he  was  all  these,  as  no  one  knew  better  or  has 
oftener  told  us  than  himself,  —  these  qualities,  on  a 
superficial  view,  detract  from  the  perfection  of  his 
character,  and  have  cruelly  interfered  with  his  just 
fame.  But  they  were  mere  exaggerations  of  harmless 
qualities.  Beneath  them  all  we  can  perceive  a  com 
plete  and  well-rounded  character,  —  large,  powerful, 
active,  and  full  of  humanities,  —  with  more  of  individ 
uality  than  that  of  any  other  public  man  of  his  day. 
Hisybrtfe  was  action.  "  I  never  shall  shine,"  he  said, 
"  till  some  animating  occasion  calls  forth  all  my 
powers."  When  side-tracked  in  the  vice-presidency, 
or  finally  ditched  at  Brain  tree,  the  engine  puffed  and 
snorted  and  let  off  steam  in  a  very  unedifying  man 
ner  ;  but  on  a  clear  course,  110  matter  what  the  load 
or  what  the  grades,  it  moved  with  the  swiftness  and 
verve  of  the  lightning-train  —  and,  it  may  be  added, 
with  something  of  its  racket. 

In  respect  to  a  man  endowed  with  such  rich  and 
varied  gifts,  we  have  a  rational  curiosity  to  know 
something  of  the  processes  of  education  and  special 
training  by  which  they  were  so  supplemented  that  in 
due  time  this  native  of  an  obscure  provincial  town 
came  to  be  regarded  as  the  ablest  constitutional  law 
yer  of  his  day  and  the  consummate  orator  and  states 
man  of  the  Revolution.  Nor  are  we  without  the 
means. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       11 

John  Adams  evidently  was  not  unconscious  of  his 
powers,  nor  without  ambition  to  make  them 
servient  to  the  interests  of  his  country  and 


his  own  honorable  fame.  In  his  youth  he  public 
divined  the  coming  empire  of  America,  and 
formed  himself,  I  think  not  without  prescience,  for  a 
distinguished  part  in  its  affairs.  His  self-examina 
tion  was  critical  and  unsparing.  He  carefully  con 
sidered  his  life-work,  as  well  as  his  own  powers.  To 
what  had  been  given  him  he  added  much  by  reading, 
reflection,  and  conversation  with  those  more  mature 
than  himself.  Of  his  college  life  we  know  little  ;  but 
on  his  graduation  he  entered  upon  a  wide  course  of 
study  with  commendable  diligence.  His  diary  tells 
us  that  he  made  himself  acquainted  with  the  great 
poets  of  antiquity  :  with  Homer,  Virgil,  Horace,  and 
Ovid.  He  knew  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Baxter,  and 
Pope,  and  apparently  understood  and  enjoyed  them. 
Before  the  adoption  of  the  law  as  his  profession,  and 
for  the  purpose  of  determining  his  choice,  he  read 
with  attention  the  works  of  the  great  divines,  the 
political  and  philosophical  writers  then  in  vogue,  and 
the  authoritative  treatises  in  medical  science.  When 
fairly  engaged  in  the  study  of  the  law,  he  pursued 
it  with  such  success  that  before  the  age  of  thirty  he 
became  one  of  the  best-equipped  lawyers  in  America. 

"  The  study  and  practice  of  law,  I  am  sure,  does 
not  dissolve  the  obligations  of  morality  or  of  reli 
gion,"  so  he  wrote  at  the  age  of  twenty,  as  he  was  en 
tering  on  his  course  of  study  ;  nor  did  he  ever  forget 
this  conviction  of  his  unhurt  youth.  His  work  was 
honest  throughout,  and  he  prepared  himself  honestly 
for  it.  He  did  not  gauge  his  legal  studies  to  the 
requirements  of  his  native  Braintree,  where  he  began 


12      JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

to  practice,  nor  by  those  of  the  metropolis  in  which  he 
was  at  one  time  settled.  He  aimed,  he  said,  to  dis 
tinguish  himself  among  his  fellow-students  "  by  the 
study  of  the  civil  law  in  its  native  tongues."  With 
Bracton,  Britton,  Fleta,  Glanville,  Coke,  and  Lord 
Hale  he  became  familiar,  as  also  with  Justinian  and 
the  great  commentators  on  the  civil  law.  To  these 
must  be  added  Montesquieu,  Blackstone  (then  re 
cently  published),  Voltaire's  "  Louis  XIV.,"  and,  in 
fine,  whatever  was  within  his  reach  that  could  en 
large,  enrich,  or  strengthen  his  understanding  for 
grasping  the  principles  of  law  and  constitutional  gov 
ernment.  Following  the  advice  of  Gridley,  the  Nes 
tor  of  the  bar,  "  to  pursue  the  study  of  the  law  rather 
than  the  gain  of  it,"  he  "  labored  to  get  distinct  ideas 
of  law,  right,  wrong,  justice,  equity ;  to  search  for 
them  in  his  own  mind,  in  Roman,  Grecian,  French, 
English  treatises  of  natural,  civil,  common,  statute 
law  ;  to  aim  at  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  nature,  end, 
and  means  of  government ;  to  compare  the  different* 
forms  of  it  with  each  other,  and  each  of  them  with 
their  effects  on  public  and  private  happiness  for  the 
advancement  of  right ;  to  assert  and  maintain  liberty 
and  virtue  ;  to  discourage  and  abolish  tyranny  and 
vice."  With  these  added  extracts  from  his  diary  we 
have  the  whole  scheme  of  his  life :  "  Let  little  ob 
jects  be  neglected  and  forgot,  and  great  ones  engross, 
arouse,  and  exalt  my  soul."  "  I  was  born  for  busi 
ness,  for  both  activity  and  study.  I  have  little  appe 
tite  or  relish  for  anything  else.  I  must  double  and 
redouble  my  diligence."  The  recorded  lives  of  great 
statesmen  have  sometimes  made  us  familiar  with  the 
aspirations  and  purposes  of  their  youth ;  but  I  recall 
few  instances  where  these  were  fixed  so  high,  so  unde- 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       13 

viatingly  pursued,  and  so  fully  attained  by  achieve 
ments  which  have  indelibly  impressed  themselves  on 
the  happy  fortunes  of  a  continent.  These  principles, 
made  efficient  by  an  intellect  of  extraordinary  power, 
placed  him  foremost  among  the  lawyers  of  his  day ; 
and  as  we  read  the  history  of  the  country,  we  learn 
without  surprise  that  John  Adams  was  also  foremost 
among  those  who  established  the  freedom  and  nation 
ality  of  America  and  laid  the  foundation  of  its  gov 
ernment.1  When  he  entered  public  life,  in  1774,  he 
was  probably  well  qualified  to  conduct  causes  and  ar 
gue  questions  of  public  law  before  any  tribunal  sitting 
at  Westminster,  and  to  represent  with  distinction  any 
English  constituency  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

Such  was  the  man  to  whom  came  his  hour ;  and  he 
made  it  an  epoch  in  history. 

John  Adams  was  too  conspicuous  to  be  overlooked 
among  the  great  men  of  the  country,  and  the  value  of 
his  services  was  acknowledged  by  his  contemporaries  ; 
but  I  think  they  were  not  estimated  at  their  true 
value.  We  are  in  a  far  better  position  than  they 
were  to  do  him  complete  justice.  We  understand  the 
Revolution  itself  in  its  causes  and  its  progress  much 
more  fully  than  those  who  were  actors  in  it.  The 
century  of  the  national  existence  just  closed  was  to 
them  the  dark,  uncertain  future  ;  to  us  it  has  joined 
the  historic  past.  In  it  we  see  events  in  their  rela 
tions  and  proportions  which  to  them  appeared  incom 
plete  and  sometimes  unrelated. 

1  John  Adams's  legal  erudition  does  not,  as  is  so  often  the  case 
among1  great  lawyers,  rest  merely  upon  tradition.  His  dissertation 
on  the  canon  and  feudal  law,  written  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  is  still 
extant,  and  may  be  read  with  profit  even  in  the  light  of  later  studies. 
It  was  erroneously  attributed  to  Gridley,  and  pronounced  by  Hollis, 
in  England,  where  it  was  more  than  once  reprinted,  to  be  "  one  of  the 
very  finest  productions  from  North  America." 


14      JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

But  I  venture  to  think  that  we  shall  not  reach 
these  desirable  results  unless  we  unlearn 
of  the Ct  r  some  things  we  have  been  taught,  and  clear 
Revoiu-  away  some  prejudices  which  have  proved  so 
fatal  to  successful  historical  research.  We 
seem  now  far  enough  removed  from  the  Revolution  to 
study  it  historically,  and  not  as  partisans ;  to  be  per 
mitted  to  learn  that  then,  as  now,  when  people  divide 
into  parties,  not  facts,  nor  right,  nor  conscience,  are 
wholly  on  one  side.1  Nor  does  it  seem  longer  neces 
sary  to  conceal  those  facts  which  do  not  stand  for 
national  honor,  or  to  be  compelled  to  guess  them  from 
ambiguous  and  often  disingenuous  apologies.  It  is 
hardly  exaggeration,  however,  to  say  that  we  can  more 
dispassionately  discuss  the  causes  of  the  late  Civil 
War,  and  lay  bare  the  motives  and  conduct  of  the 
men  and  parties  engaged  in  it  on  either  side,  than  the 
motives  and  conduct  of  men  and  parties  at  the  begin 
ning  of  the  Revolution,  the  intrigues  in  the  Congress, 
or  the  convention  at  Saratoga  in  1777. 

The  result  of  this  state  of  things,  growing  out  of 
undue  solicitude  for  the  reputation  of  individuals  and 
a  patriotic  disposition  to  exalt  the  successful  party,  is 
that  we  have  much  history  that  is  neither  truthful  nor 
profitable  for  reproof,  instruction,  or  guidance. 

John  Adams's  fame  as  a  statesman  grew  out  of  his 
services  during  the  American  Revolution.  In  the 
endeavor  to  form  a  just  estimate  of  those  services,  I 
have  been  led  to  consider  that  event  in  its  inception, 
progress,  and  results,  and  to  discover,  if  possible,  the 
exact  relations  of  John  Adams  to  it.  In  the  prosecu 
tion  of  this  purpose  I  have  observed  some  facts  which 
do  not  appear  to  me  to  be  sufficiently  emphasized,  to 

1  See  Dawson's  Handbook  for  the  Dominion  of  Canada.  103, 104. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       15 

say  the  least,  in  the  histories  of  that  period ;  and  I 
have  reached  some  conclusions  which  require  a  fuller 
statement  of  the  grounds  on  which  they  rest  than  is 
ordinarily  found  in  an  address  of  this  description. 

It  seems  to  me  that  we  shall  fail  to  appreciate  the 
true  character  of  the  Revolution  if  we  restrict  its 
entirety  to  the  events  which  transpired  between  the 
Stamp  Act  of  1765  and  the  Peace  of  1783 ;  for,  thus 
limited,  I  am  unable  to  find  adequate  causes  in  those 
events  when  regarded  in  their  necessary  political  se 
quence,  or  when  referred  in  historical  parallelism  to 
other  movements  of  society  which  have  resulted  in 
the  disruption  of  governments.  The  causes  of  revo 
lution  are  usually  remote  from  the  event.  No  matter 
on  what  soil  they  are  planted,  the  seeds  of  a  new 
order  of  government  germinate  slowly,  and  only 
children's  children  are  permitted  to  repose  beneath 
its  branches.1  For  the  history  of  the  Revolution  we 
must  go  back  to  the  planting  of  the  seeds.  John 
Adams  is  authority  for  this  view  of  the  subject.  _  . 
"  The  principles  and  feelings  which  contributed  to 
produce  the  Revolution  ought  to  be  traced  back  for 
two  hundred  years,  and  sought  in  the  history  of  the 
country  from  the  first  plantations  in  America."  Sel 
dom,  if  ever,  are  revolutions  the  spontaneous  action 
of  an  entire  community.  Their  interests  may  be  the 
same,  they  may  suffer  from  a  common  grievance,  but 
people  will  not  think  alike.  Divergences  of  opinions 
are  sure  to  arise,  and  out  of  these  parties  are  formed. 
A  contest  ensues  with  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  but  ulti 
mately  terminating  in  accordance  with  the  movement 
of  society  out  of  which  it  springs.  The  American 
Revolution  was  no  exception  to  this  general  rule, 
1  H.  B.  Adams's  Life  and  Writings  of  Jared  Sparks,  i.  494. 


16        JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

though  one  might  infer  otherwise  from  much  which 
passes  for  history. 

To  understand  the  services  which  John  Adams  ren 
dered  to  the  country  in  the  Ee volution,  it  is  essential 
to  understand  the  attitude  of  the  parties  which  brought 
it  on,  and,  with  great  exactness,  the  questions  which 
divided  them  in  their  inception,  progress,  and  urgency, 
at  the  time  when  he  engaged  in  public  affairs ;  and 
especially  so  in  his  case,  since,  to  a  profound  know 
ledge  of  these  questions,  and  the  formative  influence 
of  this  knowledge  on  his  mind  and  character,  was  due 
in  no  small  degree  his  success  in  giving  direction  and 
happy  issue  to  the  movement. 

The  commonly  received  notion  is  that  the  passage 
of  the  Stamp  Act  so  clearly  contravened  the  rights  of 
the  colonists  as  British  subjects,  that  they  with  one 
accord  rose  in  resistance,  and  after  eight  years  of 
strife  finally  achieved  their  independence.  I  venture 
to  think  that  this  is  the  apparent,  rather  than  the  real, 
state  of  the  case.  I  think  that  those  who  accept  it  fail 
to  perceive  the  true  nature  of  this  demonstration,  and 
wholly  overlook  the  vital  elements  of  genuine  revo 
lution  which  existed  in  the  antecedent  history  of  the 
two  colonies  whose  hearts  were  earliest  engaged  in 
the  cause  —  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  —  and  made 
revolution  possible ;  and  that  of  these  causes,  perhaps 
the  prime  cause,  without  which  the  Revolution  would 
never  have  begun  when  it  did  and  where  it  did,  was 
ecclesiastical  rather  than  political,  beginning  with  the 
settlement  of  the  colony  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and 
operating  with  unbroken  succession  and  efficiency 
down  to  the  commencement  of  hostilities. 

It  also  overlooks  the  origin  and  continuity  of  that 
civil  contest  which  began  in  Massachusetts  with  the 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       17 

revocation  of  the  first  charter  in  1684,  between  the 
friends  of  the  royal  government  and  the  champions  of 
popular  rights,  in  which  parties  arrayed  themselves 
under  the  respective  and  successive  lead  of  Randolph 
and  Danforth,  Dudley  and  Cooke,  Burnett  and  Wells, 
on  issues  as  sharply  defined,  involving  the  same  gen 
eral  principles,  and  as  hotly  contested,  as  those  which 
divided  Bernard  and  Hutchinson  from  James  Otis 
and  Samuel  Adams. 

Another  misconception  which  belittles  the  contest 
and  detracts  from  the  merit  of  the  patriotic  party  is 
that  which  regards  the  Tories  as  a  mere  handful  of 
malignants,  composed  mainly  of  commercial  adven 
turers  and  government  officials  having  no  stake  in  the 
community,  together  with  a  few  old  families  which,  for 
personal  aggrandizement,  set  themselves  in  opposition 
to  the  principles  and  measures  of  the  patriots,  and 
sought  to  compass  the  subjugation  and  ruin  of  the 
country  in' which  they  were  born,  and  in  which  their 
dearest  interests  centred. 

The  only  remaining  matter  to  which  I  shall  allude 
relates  to  the  grounds  on  which  the  patriotic  party 
opposed  the  parliamentary  claim  of  right  to  tax  the 
colonists.  In  reading  the  histories  of  those  times,  one 
is  likely  to  receive  the  impression  that  the  outburst  of 
popular  indignation  which  pervaded  the  colonies  on 
the  news  of  the  passage  of  the  Stamp  Act  would  not 
have  occurred  had  the  colonists  been  represented  in 
Parliament ;  but  there  is  no  foundation  for  this  im 
pression.  Their  main  objection  was  commercial,  and 
not  political.  It  was  to  the  tax,  not  to  non-represen 
tation  ;  still  less  to  any  merely  theoretical  claim  of 
parliamentary  supremacy,  as  is  evident  from  the  quiet 
which  followed  the  repeal  of  the  act,  though  accom- 


18        JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

panied  by  the  express  declaration  of  the  right  to  tax 
the  colonists.  And  we  are  to  regard  the  resolutions 
of  the  Congress  of  1765,  as  well  as  those  of  the  pro 
vincial  assemblies  in  the  early  stages  of  the  contro 
versy,  and  perhaps  as  late  as  1775,  in  the  nature  of 
protests,  like  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  resolutions 
of  a  later  day,  designed,  of  course,  to  influence  par 
liamentary  legislation,  but  not  as  preliminaries  of 
forcible  resistance. 

But  there  came  a  time  —  earlier  in  Massachusetts 
than  elsewhere,  for  reasons  to  be  given  hereafter  — 
when  all  this  was  changed  ;  when  the  colonists  came 
to  understand  that  there  were  colonial  constitutions  as 
well  as  a  British  constitution,  and  that  both  were  sub 
ject  to  like  laws  of  growth  and  development ;  that  by 
the  operation  of  these  laws  in  the  direction  of  natural 
rights  their  own  constitutions  had  come  to  be  the  basis 
and  measure  of  their  rights  and  immunities  ;  that  in 
all  cases,  especially  in  internal  affairs,  where  the  im 
perial  and  colonial  constitutional  maxims  conflicted, 
the  latter  were  the  fundamental  rule  of  right  and  ac 
tion  ;  and  finally,  that  if  the  validity  of  this  construc 
tion  involved  a  reference  to  the  ultima  ratio,  it  would 
only  be  one  more  instance,  of  which  English  history 
is  full,  of  that  mode  of  settling  constitutional  ques 
tions.  When  the  colonists  came  to  this  ground,  they 
had  a  good  fighting  position,  not  before.  Here  John 
Adams  stood  —  stood  nearly  alone  ;  altogether  alone 
in  the  clearness  with  which  he  saw  the  strength  of  this 
position,  and  in  the  courage  and  pertinacity  with  which 
he  maintained  it.1  To  this  clear  constitutional  ground 
he  first  led  his  own  colony,  and  finally  the  representa- 

1  But  see  George  W.  Greene's  Historical  View  of  the  American  Rev 
olution,  381. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       19 

tives  of  the  thirteen  colonies  in  Congress  assembled, 
in  a  declaration  of  their  rights  in  1774,  and  of  their 
independence  in  1776.  This  was  his  greatest  public 
service  ;  and  it  was  the  greatest  feat  of  statesmanship 
during  the  revolutionary  period.  He  had  able  coad 
jutors,  but  to  him,  more  than  to  any  other,  the  honor 
is  due.  This  ground  of  rights  under  colonial  consti 
tution  once  taken,  the  strife  was  no  longer  rebellion, 
but  maintenance  of  constitutional  rights.  "  We  are 
not  exciting  a  rebellion,"  exclaimed  John  Adams. 
"  Opposition,  nay,  open,  avowed  resistance  by  arms, 
against  usurpation  and  lawless  violence,  is  not  rebel 
lion  by  the  law  of  God  or  the  land."  The  colonists 
were  no  longer  traitors,  but  patriots  ;  and  those  who 
undertook  to  force  their  position  were  justly  deemed 
public  enemies.  Final  success  was  no  longer  doubt 
ful.  The  cause  had  aligned  itself  to  the  great  move 
ment  of  society,  which  began  with  the  Reformation, 
in  the  direction  of  nationality,  and  in  its  support  had 
secured  the  resources  of  a  continent. 

These  positions  must  now  be  referred  to  their  his 
toric  basis.     It  was  by  no  accident  that  the    Massa- 
Revolution  broke  out  in  Massachusetts  Bay.    phusetts 
It  could  have  happened,  at   that  time,  no- 


where  else  upon  the  continent.  Nowhere  tlon- 
else  had  a  succession  of  causes,  civil  and  religious,  op 
erative  through  a  hundred  years,  prepared  the  way  for 
it.  Hither  the  royal  troops  had  been  sent,  because 
here  they  were  needed  to  maintain  the  royal  govern 
ment  ;  and  to  these  troops  the  first  armed  resistance 
in  which  blood  was  shed  was  on  the  field  of  Lexing 
ton,  April  19,  1775.1 

1  On  this  point  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  quote  authorities.     One 


20       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Starting,  then,  from  that  place  and  hour,  and  run 
ning  back  on  the  line  of  colonial  history  in  search  of 
adequate  causes  not  connected  with  antecedent  causes, 
I  find  my  progress  arrested  and  my  historic  sense  of 
cause  and  effect  satisfied  only  by  the  events  and  mo 
tives  which  led  to  the  settlement  of  the  Bay  in  1630. 
These  motives  were  two :  religious  and  civil  liberty. 
And  the  greater  of  these  was  religious  liberty.  It 
was  also  the  more  efficient.  And  I  find  that  these 
motives,  regarded  as  causes,  continued  to  exist  and 
operate  in  clear  religious  and  political  sequence,  with 
only  insignificant  interruptions  and  with  scarcely  im 
paired  vitality,  to  the  treaty  of  peace  in  that  year  of 
God  of  which  the  last  was  the  happy  centennial ;  and 
that  the  events  which  occurred  between  1765  and 
1783,  though  dramatically  complete  in  themselves, 
yet  historically  are  only  the  closing  act  of  a  drama 
which  opened  in  1630  with  the  coming  of  Winthrop 
and  his  Puritans. 

Thus  the  American  Revolution  began  in  the  colony 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  in  its  vital  and  most  po 
tent  force  was  religious  rather  than  political.  This 
character  of  the  Revolution  was  impressed  upon  it  by 
the  circumstances  which  led  to  the  Puritan  hegira 

will  suffice.  "  In  all  the  late  American  disturbances,  and  in  every 
attempt  against  the  authority  of  the  British  Parliament,  the  people  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  have  taken  the  lead.  Every  new  move  towards 
independence  has  been  theirs  ;  and  in  every  fresh  mode  of  resistance 
against  the  law,  they  have  first  set  the  example,  and  then  issued  out 
admonitory  letters  to  the  other  colonies  to  follow  it."  Mauduit's 
Short  View  of  the  History  of  the  New  England  Colonies,  5.  An  ad 
dress  to  the  House,  February  7,  1775,  and  before  the  events  at  Lex 
ington,  proposed  by  the  minister,  and  carried  after  great  debate, 
declared  that  a  rebellion  already  existed  in  Massachusetts,  counte 
nanced  and  fomented  by  unlawful  combinations  in  the  other  Colonies. 
Hildreth,  Hist.  U.  S.  iii.  61. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       21 

from  England  in  1630;  and  those  circumstances,  only 

changed  in  form  but  remaining  the  same  in 

their  essential  character,  continued  to  exist    Ecciesi- 

^__fr          .      asticism 

until  the  events  at  Lexington  in  1775  noti-    a  cause  of 


fied  the  Bishop  of  London,  as  well  as  the 
King  of  England,  that  the  descendants  of 
the  Puritans  had  referred  both  the  polemics  of  the 
hierarchy  and  the  casuistry  of  parliamentary  suprem 
acy  to  the  decision  of  war.  The  motive  which  led  to 
the  Puritan  emigration  was  religious  rather  than  civil. 
It  was  from  the  crozier  rather  than  the  sceptre  — 
from  Laud  and  the  High  Commission  rather  than 
Charles  the  Eirst  —  that  the  Puritans  fled.2 

1  Notwithstanding  what  I  say  about  "  Ecclesiasticism  as  a  cause 
of  the  Revolution,"  some  of  my  critics  have  hastily  substituted  the 
for  a.     I  wrote  only  after  careful  examination  of  original  authorities 
and  much  reflection.     Many  historical  scholars  have  written   me  to 
the  effect   that,  while  they  were  pleased  to  say  that  much  in   the 
pamphlet  was  not  only  "  new  but  also  true,"  that  part  which  treated 
of   ecclesiasticism  was   not    only  true,  but  had   never    before  been 
treated,  so  far  as  they  had  observed,  with  direct  explicitness. 

Since  I  wrote,  I  have  found  a  large  mass  of  authorities  ;  but  only 
lately  have  I  read  the  most  remarkable  letter  of  Roger  Sherman  in  his 
Life  by  L.  H.  Boutell,  p.  64.  I  think  it  confirms  all  that  I  have  said, 
and  places  the  subject  where  only  one  of  his  ability  could  place  it. 

2  "  Independence  of  English  Church  and  State  was  the  fundamen- 
tal  principle  of  the  first  colonization,  has  been  its  general  principle 
for  two  hundred  years,  and  now,  I  hope,  is  past  dispute.     Who,  then, 
was   the  author,  inventor,  discoverer,  of   independence  ?      The  only 
true  answer  must  be,  the  first  emigrants.     When   we  say  that  Otis, 
Adams,  Mayhew,  Henry,  Lee,  Jefferson,  etc.,  were  authors  of  inde 
pendence,  we  ought  to  say  they  were  only  awakeners  and  revivers  of 
the  original  fundamental  principle  of  colonization."  —  John  Adams's 
Works,  x.  359.     "  It  is  certain  that  civil  dominion  was  but  the  sec 
ondary  motive,  religious  the  primary,  with  our  ancestors  in  coming 
hither  and  settling  this  land."  —  President  Stiles,  American  Pulpit, 
xxx.     This  view  seems  to  be  adopted  by  Harry  A.  Gushing  in  his 
Transition  from  Provincial   to  Commonwealth  Government  in  Massa 
chusetts,  p.  14,  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  time  of   reorganization   in   Massachusetts  is   marked   by  a 


22      JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

They  came  hither  to  escape  the  hierarchy  of  the 
Church  of  England  and  to  set  up  one  of  their  own. 
And  it  was  in  defense  of  this  domestic  hierarchy  - 
though  civil  and  religious  liberty  were  indissolubly 
connected  in  their  minds  —  that  the  clergy  of  New 
England,  alone  of  all  the  professional  or  propertied 
classes,  arrayed  themselves  on  the  popular  side. 

In  the  middle  and  southern  colonies,  as  well  as  in 
New  England,  there  had  been  political  contests  with 
the  representatives  of  the  Crown.  All  the  colonies 
were  dissatisfied  with  the  Navigation  Laws  and  Acts 
of  Trade  and  the  exercise  of  the  royal  prerogatives ; 
but  out  of  New  England  the  colonists,  who  were 
mainly  of  the  Church  of  England,  —  certainly  not 
Puritans,  —  became  quiet  as  the  enforcement  of  these 
laws  was  relaxed  or  evaded.  But  in  New  England, 
and  especially  in  Massachusetts,  disquietude  prevailed 
unceasingly,  and  the  Revolutionary  cause,  when  no 
other  disturbing  element  was  apparent,  fluctuated  with 
the  efforts  of  the  Bishop  of  London  to  establish  Epis 
copacy  in  New  England.  For  the  accomplishment 
of  this  end  there  was  the  ever  present,  always  active 

variety  of  clear  characteristics;  it  is,  as  well,  divided  into  distinct 
periods.  The  underlying1  causes  of  the  change  appear  in  the  strong 
difference  in  religious  types  between  the  home  country  and  its  colony, 
in  the  wholly  different  social  surroundings  and  influences,  in  the  in 
creasing,  if  not  even  hostile,  divergence  of  economic  interests  and 
activity,  and  in  the  almost  antipodal  political  traditions  nourished 
and  acted  upon  by  the  more  advanced  colonists  on  the  one  hand,  and? 
on  the  other,  by  the  more  conservative  Englishmen." 

Elias  Boudinot,  President  of  Congress,  to  Rev.  James  Caldwell, 
June  19,  1776  :  "  Our  Clergy  have  gone  distracted,  and  have  done 
us  more  injury  than  they  will  do  us  good  in  a  great  while  ...  we 
have  been  quarreling  with  the  Church  of  England  these  forty  years 
past,  about  uniting  Civil  and  Ecclesiastical  Power;  and  now  the 
moment  we  have  the  Power  in  our  hands,  we  are  running  into  the 
same  extreme."  —  Leffingwell's  Catalogue,  No.  1170. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       23 

motive  of  sectarian  zeal  for  the  propagation  of  religious 
faith,  and  still  more  of  ecclesiastical  government.  To 
this  was  added  a  special  reason  in  the  dissatisfaction 
of  the  Church  of  England  people  in  Massachusetts,  to 
whom  Puritanic  ways  were  displeasing.  This  class, 
consisting  in  the  early  days  chiefly  of  crown  officials 
and  commercial  sojourners,  was  not  large,  but  increas 
ing  sufficiently,  so  as  to  excite  the  commiseration  of 
the  Bishop  of  London  as  sheep  without  a  shepherd 
and  wandering  in  unconsecrated  pastures.  His  efforts 
for  their  relief  kept  the  Puritans  in  hot  water  for 
more  than  seventy  years,  and  gave  rise  to  a  mutual 
dislike  which  became  hereditary.  In  their  resistance 
to  Episcopacy  the  Massachusetts  people  were  regarded 
in  England  as  bigoted  religionists  and  refractory  sub 
jects.  And  so  were  they  by  the  people  of  the  colonies 
out  of  New  England;  a  fact  never  to  be  lost  sight 
of  in  tracing  the  progress  of  the  Revolution.  For 
the  middle  and  southern  colonies  had  been  settled  or 
become  possessed  by  people  in  sympathy  with  the 
Church  of  England,  or  at  least  having  no  special 
cause  of  hostility  to  it,  —  as  was  the  case  with  the 
Puritans,  —  under  whose  ministrations  they  were  con 
tented,  with  loyalty  to  the  king,  to  worship  God  after 
the  manner  of  their  fathers. 

To  this  grateful  privilege  of  ecclesiastical  relation 
ship  was  added  a  pecuniary  advantage,  so  long  as  the 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign 
Parts  liberally  expended  the  contributions  of  the 
piously  disposed  churchmen  of  the  mother  country  in 
establishing  parishes,  erecting  church  edifices,  and 
paying  the  salaries  of  missionaries  in  colonial  terri 
tory.  To  this  the  other  colonists  saw  no  more  objec 
tions  than  occur  to  the  minds  of  our  frontier  settlers 


24      JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

to  the  benevolent  operations  of  the  Home  Missionary 
Society.  But  to  the  Puritans  of  Massachusetts,  scat 
tering  the  seeds  of  Episcopacy  was  sowing  tares  by 
the  Evil  One.  To  escape  from  soul-destroying  con 
formity,  their  fathers  had  fled  their  pleasant  homes 
in  Lincolnshire  and  set  up  their  altars  in  a  bleak  and 
sterile  wilderness.  They  had  come  hither,  not  so 
much  to  erect  a  state  as  a  church ;  and  if  after  a 
time  the  two  became  one,  that  one  was  the  church- 
state,  not  the  state-church,  between  which  there  is  an 
immense  difference.  They  set  it  up  for  themselves, 
not  for  others.  To  the  liberality  of  toleration  they 
made  no  pretension,  as  is  so  often  forgotten.  To  their 
new  home  came  unwelcome  intruders,  and  with  them 
came  trouble.  I  am  now  to  trace  this  history.1  Laud, 

1  Some  years  since,  I  noticed  facts  in  ecclesiastical  history  appar 
ently  of  more  importance  in  the  Revolutionary  struggle  than  had 
been  accorded  to  them  by  historians ;  and  later,  special  study  has 
confirmed  this  impression.  This  reticence  on  the  part  of  those  who 
wrote  early  on  the  war  of  the  Revolution  had  been  observed  by  Bou 
cher,  the  Tory  clergyman  of  Virginia,  and  by  him  attributed  to  some 
discreditable  motive,  such  as  a  disposition  to  conceal  the  Puritan 
narrowness  which  would  exclude  Episcopalians  from  the  privileges 
of  church  worship  after  their  form.  —  View  of  the  Causes  of  the  Revo 
lution,  148.  Bancroft  and  Hildreth  have  treated  the  subject  as  fully, 
perhaps,  as  the  necessary  regard  to  proportions  in  a  general  history 
would  permit ;  but  neither,  so  as  to  apprise  the  reader  how  early  and 
how  continuously,  nor,  I  think,  how  efficiently,  ecclesiasticism  oper 
ated  as  a  cause  of  the  Revolution.  Hildreth,  who  treats  the  subject 
more  fully  and  more  directly  than:  Bancroft,  says,  "The  Congrega 
tional  ministers  of  New  England,  an  intelligent  and  very  influential 
body,  headed  at  this  period  by  Chauncy  and  Cooper,  of  Boston,  cher 
ished  a  traditionary  sentiment  of  opposition  to  British  control,  —  a 
sentiment  strengthened,  of  late  years,  by  the  attempts  of  the  English 
Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  to  build  up  Episcopacy  in 
New  England  by  supporting  there  some  thirty  Episcopal  missionaries. 
An  unseasonable  revival  of  the  scheme  for  a  bishop  in  the  colonies 
had  recently  excited  a  bitter  controversy,  in  which,  since  Mayhew's 
death,  Chauncy  had  come  forward  as  the  Congregational  champion  ; 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       25 

at  the  head  of  the  High  Commission,  began  the 
assault  on  the  expatriated  Puritans  in  1634,  but  the 

a  controversy  which  could  only  tend  to  confirm  the  Congregational 
body  in  hostility  to  the  extension  of  English  influence." — History 
of  the  United  States,  iii.  55. 

There  is  a  very  interesting  letter  written  by  John  Adams  to  Dr. 
Morse  in  1815,  the  whole  of  which  should  be  read  by  those  who 
would  know  the  views  of  one  most  competent  to  speak  on  this  sub 
ject.  The  following  extract  will  serve  to  show  some  foundation  at 
least  for  the  view  I  have  taken  in  the  text ;  and  I  may  add,  had 
I  met  with  it  earlier  in  my  reading,  it  would  have  saved  me  much 
research,  and  the  reader  some  pages  of  my  own :  — 

"  Where  is  the  man  to  be  found  at  this  day,  when  we  see  Metlio- 
distical  bishops,  bishops  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  bishops,  arch 
bishops,  and  Jesuits  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  with  indifference,  who 
will  believe  that  the  apprehension  of  Episcopacy  contributed  fifty 
years  ago,  as  much  as  any  other  cause,  to  arouse  the  attention,  not 
only  of  the  inquiring  mind,  but  of  the  common  people,  and  urge  them 
to  close  thinking  on  the  constitutional  authority  of  Parliament  over 
the  colonies  ?  This,  nevertheless,  was  a  fact  as  certain  as  any  in 
the  history  of  North  America.  The  objection  was  not  merely  to  the 
office  of  a  bishop,  though  even  that  was  dreaded,  but  to  the  authority 
of  Parliament,  on  which  it  must  be  founded.  ...  If  Parliament  can 
erect  dioceses  and  appoint  bishops,  they  may  introduce  the  whole 
hierarchy,  establish  tithes,  forbid  marriages  and  funerals,  establish 
religions,  forbid  dissenters."  —  Works,  x.  185. 

At  an  earlier  date  he  had  said,  "  It  is  true  that  the  people  of  this 
country  in  general,  and  of  this  province  in  special,  have  an  heredi 
tary  apprehension  of  and  aversion  to  lordships,  temporal  and  spirit 
ual.  Their  ancestors  fled  to  this  wilderness  to  avoid  them,  —  they 
suffered  sufficiently  under  them  in  England.  And  there  are  few  of 
the  present  generation  who  have  not  been  warned  of  the  danger  of 
them  by  their  fathers  and  grandfathers,  and  enjoined  to  oppose 
them."  —  Novanglus,  February  13,  1775. 

The  bibliography  of  this  subject  is  yet  to  be  made.  Here  follow 
some  references  to  works  which  are  incidentally  or  directly  illus 
trative  of  ecclesiasticism  in  the  Colonies,  and  which  may  be  of  service 
to  future  students,  though  set  down  at  random.  Hutchinson's  History, 
iii.  15  ;  W.  Gordon's  Thanksgiving  Discourse,  December  15, 1774,  24  n. ; 
Gordon's  History,  i.  ;  Eddis's  Letters  from  America,  50  ;  Joseph  Emer 
son's  Thanksgiving  Sermon,  July  24,  170G,  12  ;  W.  Livingston's  "  Let 
ter  to  John,  Bishop  of  Landaff  ;  "  Historical  Magazine,  ser.  2,  v.  208  ; 
Makemie's  Narrative  of  Imprisonment  (Force's  Tracts,  vol.  iv.) ;  North 


26        JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

civil  wars  prevented  further  efforts  to  set  up  Episco 
pacy  until  the  Restoration.  The  contention,  however, 
did  not  cease  when  Presbyterianism  became  the  state 
religion  under  the  Commonwealth,  since  the  adherents 
of  that  ecclesiastical  polity  sought  to  introduce  it  into 
Massachusetts.  This  the  Puritans  resisted  as  strenu 
ously  as  they  had  resisted  prelacy.  They  had  estab 
lished  independent  churches,  and  determined  they 
should  remain  such.  They  agreed  with  John  Mil 
ton,  — 

"  New  Presbyter  is  but  Old  Priest  writ  large." 

But  the  Restoration  of  Charles  II.  renewed  the 
strife  under  its  old  form  —  resistance  to  Anglicanism. 
For  as  soon  as  the  domestic  affairs  of  the  realm  would 
permit,  royal  commissioners  were  sent  over  to  inquire 
into  the  reports  from  Massachusetts  Bay,  "that  his 
subjects  in  those  parts  did  not  submit  to  his  govern 
ment,  but  looked  upon  themselves  as  independent  upon 

American  Review,  April,  1884,  cxxxviii.  359 ;  Waddington's  Congre 
gational  History,  1700-1800,  459  ;  Short  Appeal  to  the  People  of  Great 
Britain  (1776)  ;  F.  Maseres's  Paraphrase  on  a  Passage  in  a  Sermon  by 
Dr.  Markham  (1777) ;  C.  Chauncy's  Letter  to  a  Friend  (1767)  ;  Sir  J. 
Johnson's  Orderly  Book,  xii.  ;  Bishop  White's  Memoirs  of  the  Protest 
ant  Episcopal  Church,  De  Costa's  ed.  ;  J.  L.  Diman's  Orations  and 
Essays,  223 ;  T.  B.  Chandler's  Appeal  to  the  Public  in  Behalf  of  the 
Church  of  England  in  America  (1767)  ;  "  Letter  of  Dr.  Gibson,  Bishop 
of  London,"  in  Chalmers's  Opinions  of  Eminent  Lawyers ;  Franklin's 
Works  (Sparks's  ed.),  iv.  89 ;  C.  A.  Briggs,  "  Puritanism  in  New  York," 

V  Magazine  of  American  History,  xiii.  39  ;  Otis's  Vindication  of  the  Con 
duct  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  20  n. ;  Quincy's  Address,  September 
17, 1830, 22  et  seq. ;  Brooks  Adams's  Emancipation  of  Massachusetts,  ch. 
xi. ;  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  iv.  4,  410  et  seq. ;  Life  of  Peter 
Van  Schaaclc;  Votes  and  Proceedings  of  the  Freeholders  of  the  Town  of 
Boston,  November  20, 1772,  27  ;  Perry's  Historical  Collections  relating 

V  to  the  American  Colonial  Church,  in.,  Massachusetts  ;  Beardsley's  Life 
and  Correspondence  of  Samuel  Johnson,  D.  D.,  Missionary  of  the  Church 
of  England  in  Connecticut ;  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis ;  Ramsay's  History 
Amer.  Rev.  i.  199  (Phila.,  1789). 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       27 

him  and  his  laws  ; "  and  with  instructions  "  to  take 
care  that  such  orders  were  established  there  that  the 
Act  of  Navigation  should  be  punctually  observed ; " 
and  to  send  home  a  detailed  report  of  the  frame  and 
constitution  of  the  local  government  in  church  and 
state.1 

The  significance  of  these  directions  was  clear  to  the 
colonists  when  they  found  their  old  enemy,  the  Church 
of  England  Samuel  Maverick,  among  the  commission 
ers.  This  unfriendly  scrutiny  into  their  ecclesiasti 
cal  and  civil  affairs  was  met  by  the  colonists  with 
infinite  skill  and  patience,  if  not  with  entire  candor ; 
for  nobody  knew  better  than  themselves  that  they 
had  claimed  and  exercised  substantial  sovereignty  in 
church  and  state,  and  that  they  were  determined  to 
yield  it  only  in  the  direst  extremity.  In  that  extrem 
ity  they  soon  found  themselves ;  but  neither  they  nor 
their  descendants  ceased  to  resist  the  introduction 
of  prelacy,  until  armed  resistance  at  the  Revolution 
involved  the  thirteen  colonies  in  a  strife  which  had 
its  origin  in  a  question  of  parliamentary  government. 

In  1684  the  enemies  of  the  Puritan  church  over 
threw  the  old  charter  under  which  the  colonists  had 
been  allowed  to  manage  civil  and  ecclesiastical  affairs 
in  a  very  free  and  independent  way.  What  of  dis 
aster  to  civil  and  religious  liberty,  as  the  Puritans 
understood  these  terms,  this  change  imported,  soon 
became  evident.  It  overthrew  their  constitution  of 
government,  it  confiscated  the  title  to  their  lands  and 
all  improvements  on  them,  and  it  imperiled  their  cher 
ished  form  of  church  government.  The  significance 
of  the  loss  of  their  charter,  in  its  influence  upon  the 
hundred  years  of  controversy  which  ensued,  will  not 

1  Palfrey,  History,  ii.  584. 


28        JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

be  fully  appreciated  unless  we  keep  in  mind  that 
ecclesiastical  as  well  as  civil  causes  led  to  that  result. 
It  was  not  merely  because  the  colonists  had  disobeyed 
the  Navigation  Laws,  coined  money,  and  performed 
other  acts  of  civil  sovereignty,  that  Charles's  commis' 
sioners  were  sent  on  their  errand  of  inquiry.  In  fact, 
the  formation  of  the  commission  was  instigated  in  the 
colony  itself  by  those  whose  chief  grievance  was  that 
they  had  suffered  under  the  strictness  of  the  Puritan 
hierarchy  in  not  being  permitted  those  consolations  to 
be  found  by  them  only  in  the  bosom  of  the  Anglican 
church.  "  They  discountenance  the  Church  of  Eng 
land  "  was  the  constant  complaint  to  the  Privy  Coun 
cil  by  Randolph,  the  memory  of  whose  malign  influence 
as  the  evil  genius  of  New  England  still  survives  in 
tradition  as  well  as  in  recorded  history. 

The  new  order  of  things  under  the  presidency  of 
Dudley  began  May  25,  1686,  and  the  day  following 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Ratcliffe,  who  had  been  sent  over  by  the 
Bishop  of  London  to  institute  Episcopal  worship, 
waited  upon  the  Council.  Mason  and  Randolph, 
members  of  that  body,  proposed  that  he  should  be 
allowed  one  of  the  three  Puritan  meeting-houses  to 
preach  in ;  and  in  June  the  first  Anglican  church  in 
New  England  was  organized  at  Boston.  The  next 
year  the  Old  South  meeting-house  was  virtually  seized 
by  Andros,  who  had  succeeded  Dudley,  and  used  for 
the  Church  of  England  service.  "  If,"  says  Palfrey, 
44  the  demand  had  been  for  the  use  of  the  building  for 
a  mass,  or  for  a  carriage-house  for  Juggernaut,  it 
could  scarcely  have  been  to  the  generality  of  people 
more  offensive."  l  But  the  Revolution  of  1689,  of 

1  "  The  Quakers  and  other  Dissenters  were  encouraged  by  Andros 
to  refuse  payment  of  the  taxes  levied  by  the  towns  for  the  support  of 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       29 

which  the  detestation  of  Episcopacy  was  one  of  the 
chief  causes,  swept  away  Andros  and  his  government, 
and  the  Puritan  Zion  had  comparative  peace  until 
1699,  when  the  Earl  of  Bellomont,  the  first  Church 
of  England  governor  under  the  new  charter,  arrived. 
He  was  attached  to  the  communion  of  his  church, 
which  he  attempted  to  revive  in  Boston.  In  this  he 
was  encouraged  by  the  Bishop  of  London,  the  dio 
cesan  for  America,  and  the  Lords  of  Trade,  who  in 
terested  themselves  to  obtain  for  the  colonists  the 
advantages  of  ecclesiastical  supervision.1  And  from 
this  time  down  to  the  breaking  out  of  the  war,  Bishops 
Tenison,  Sherlock,  and  Seeker  were  successively  active 
in  promoting  the  establishment  of  an  Anglican  hier 
archy,  with  resident  bishops,  in  America ; 2  and  in  1761 
there  were  in  New  England  thirty  missionaries  who 
had  been  sent  over  by  the  Propagation  Society.3 
For  nearly  a  hundred  years  preceding  the  Kevolu- 

the  ministers.  .  .  .  The  celebrating  of  marriages,  no  longer  exercised 
by  the  magistrates,  as  had  been  the  case  under  the  old  charter,  was 
confined  to  Episcopal  clergymen,  of  whom  there  was  but  one  in  the 
province.  It  was  necessary  to  come  to  Boston  in  order  to  be  mar 
ried."  Hildreth,  History  of  the  United  States,  ii.  84,  85. 

1  "The   zeal   of   William's   colonial   governors  on  behalf   of  the 
Church  of  England  originated  quite  as  much  in  political  as  in  religious 
motives.     Community  of  religion,  it  was  thought,  would  be  a  security 
for  political  obedience."  —  Ibid.  ii.  214. 

2  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  vii.  215 ;  Palfrey,  iv.  298. 

3  The  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  in  Foreign  Parts 
was  established  in  1701  ;  but  whether  on  the  suggestion  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  Bray  of  the  Church  of  England,  who,  as  a  commissary  to  supervise 
the  religious  establishment  of  Maryland,  embarked  thither  December 
16,  1699,  does  not  appear. 

He  was  an  intelligent  gentleman,  and  established  libraries  in  the 
colonies  ;  but  they  were  mainly  theological,  and  of  the  Church  of  Eng 
land.  As  such  they  met  with  slight  favor  in  New  England ,  where  only 
a  few  were  established.  See  B.  C.  Steiner  in  American  Historical 
Review,  ii.  59. 


30      JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

tion,  these  efforts  to  establish  Episcopacy  in  Massa 
chusetts  were  causes  of  anxiety  and  alarm.  On  the 
anniversary  of  the  death  of  Charles  the  First,  January 
30,  1750,  and  twenty-five  years  before  war  broke  out, 
Dr.  Jonathan  Mayhew  of  Boston  preached  a  discourse 
which  became  famous  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  in 
which  he  attacked  the  doctrines  of  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  passive  obedience,  and  the  exclusive  claims  of 
the  Episcopal  hierarchy.  A  sentence  from  the  preface 
to  the  published  sermon  will  indicate  its  character  and 
temper :  "  People  have  no  security  against  being  un 
mercifully  priest-ridden  but  by  keeping  all  imperious 
bishops,  and  other  clergymen  who  love  to  lord  it  over 
God's  heritage,  from  getting  their  feet  into  the  stirrup 
at  all."  It  breathed  an  intense  spirit  of  religious  and 
civil  liberty,  and  did  much  to  intensify  the  colonial 
hatred  of  the  threatened  Episcopal  hierarchy.1  In 
this  it  expressed  —  perhaps  inspired  —  the  sentiments 
of  Samuel  Adams,  and  was  one  of  the  most  powerful 
influences  which  kept  alive  the  spirit  of  revolution 
and  finally  prepared  the  minds  of  the  Massachusetts 
colonists  for  open  resistance.  The  following  extracts 
will  show  how  continuous  was  the  hostility  manifested 
to  Episcopacy,  —  a  feeling  not  confined  to  the  igno 
rant,  illiberal  crowd,  but  shared  by  the  most  enlight 
ened  of  the  colonists. 

Samuel  Adams,  as  the  voice  of  the  House  of  Kepre- 
sentatives,  presumably  expressing  the  sentiments  of 
the  people,  in  a  letter  to  their  agent  in  London  in 
1768  said :  "  The  establishment  of  a  Protestant  Epis- 

1  "  Say,  at  what  period  did  they  grudge 
To  send  you  Governor  or  Judge, 
With  all  their  Missionary  crew, 
To  teach  you  law  and  gospel  too  ?  " 

TBUMBULL'S  McFingal. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       31 

copate  in  America  is  also  very  zealously  contended 
for;  and  it  is  very  alarming  to  a  people  whose  fa 
thers,  from  the  hardships  they  suffered  under  such  an 
establishment,  were  obliged  to  fly  their  native  coun 
try  into  a  wilderness.  .  .  .  We  hope  in  God  such  an 
establishment  will  never  take  place  in  America,  and 
we  desire  you  would  strenuously  oppose  it.  The  reve 
nue  raised  in  America,  for  aught  we  can  tell,  may 
be  as  constitutionally  applied  towards  the  support  of 
prelacy  as  of  soldiers  and  pensioners." 1 

Dr.  Andrew  Eliot,  the  enlightened  clergyman  who 
declined  the  presidency  of  Harvard  College,  in  one  of 
a  series  of  letters  chiefly  on  this  subject,  written  be 
tween  1768  and  1771,  addressed  to  Thomas  Hollis,  in 
England,  said:  "The  people  of  New  England  are 
greatly  alarmed ;  the  arrival  of  a  bishop  would  raise 
them  as  much  as  any  one  thing."  2 

As  late  as  1772,  the  Boston  Committee  of  Corre 
spondence  appointed  to  state  the  rights  of  the  colo 
nists,  in  their  report  made  in  Faneuil  Hall,  among 
other  things  declared  that  various  attempts  "  have 
been  made,  and  are  now  made,  to  establish  an  Ameri 
can  Episcopate ;  "  though  "  no  power  on  earth  can 
justly  give  temporal  or  spiritual  jurisdiction  within 
this  province  except  the  great  and  general  court."3 

It  may  be  difficult  for  us  who  live  under  the  mild 
and  beneficent  influence  of  Episcopacy  to  understand 
the  alarm  which  its  proposed  introduction  occasioned 
to  the  most  liberal  minds  among  our  New  England 
ancestors  during  the  century  which  immediately  pre- 

1  Wells's  Life  of  Samuel  Adams,  i.  157. 

2  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  xxiv.  422;    Tudor's  Life  of 
Otis,  136. 

3  Thornton's  Pulpit  of  the  American  Revolution,  192  ;  and  Adams's 
Works,  ix.  287,  288. 


32      JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

ceded  the  Revolution.  Making  all  due  allowances  for 
the  exaggerated  apprehensions  of  the  common  people 
(I  mean  those  who  were  ready  to  mob  a  bishop),  as 
well  as  for  the  personal  pecuniary  interest  which  the 
clergy  of  the  ruling  order  had  in  resisting  encroach 
ments  upon  their  establishment,  there  was  at  that 
time  a  real  danger  to  civil  liberty  as  it  existed  under 
democratic  forms,  in  the  attitude  and  claims  of  the 
Anglican  hierarchy.  Nor  was  New  England  alone  in 
this  state  of  alarm.  There  were  many  in  Old  Eng 
land,  some  high  in  the  church  itself,1  who  depre 
cated  the  reactionary  tendency  towards  an  exercise  of 
the  temporal  powers.  In  both  countries  the  question 
was  the  same  at  the  period  of  our  Revolution,  and  had 
been  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  During  this 
period  the  Puritans  in  Old  England  who  abided  the 
result  of  the  contest  on  their  native  soil,  and  their 
descendants,  finally  threw  off  the  excess  of  prelatical 
domination  with  its  included  doctrines  of  the  divine 
right  and  passive  obedience,  and  relegated  Episco 
pacy  in  all  but  the  name  to  the  exercise  of  its  spirit 
ual  functions,  restrained  the  power  of  the  nobles,  ex 
tinguished  that  of  the  sovereign,  and  raised  the  people, 


1  English  Dissenters,  with  some  churchmen,  were  in  full  accord 
with  their  American  brethren  on  this  subject.  Archdeacon  Black- 
burne  says,  "  They  knew  the  hardships  of  those  legal  disabilities 
under  which  they  themselves  lay  at  home.  They  had  good  reason  to 
believe  that  the  influence  of  the  established  hierarchy  contributed  to 
continue  this  grievance.  Their  brethren  in  America  were  as  yet  free 
from  it,  and  if  bishops  were  let  in  among  them,  and  particularly 
under  the  notion  of  presiding  in  established  churches,  there  was 
the  highest  probability  they  would  take  their  precedents  of  govern 
ment  and  discipline  from  the  establishment  in  the  mother  country 
and  would  probably  never  be  at  rest  till  they  had  established  it  on  the 
basis  of  an  exclusive  test.  They  knew  their  American  brethren 
thought  on  this  subject  just  as  they  themselves  did."  —  Works,  ii.  73. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       33 

through  the  commons,  to  their  true  place  in  the  body 
politic.  To  accomplish  this  cost  one  king  his  head, 
another  his  crown,  and  the  people  themselves  untold 
treasures  of  blood  and  money. 

Some  of  the  Puritans  sought  quiet  by  flight  into 
the  New  England  wilderness;  but  in  vain.  They 
found  no  exemption  in  that  way.  The  spirit  of  eccle 
siastical  domination  followed  them,  and  for  a  century 
and  a  half  they  strenuously  resisted  the  re-imposition 
of  that  system  which  their  brethren  at  home  were  en 
deavoring  to  throw  off.  The  contest  was  essentially 
the  same  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and  continued 
down  to  the  Revolution,  of  which  it  was  one  of  the 
principal  causes.  During  this  long  contest  names 
often  changed,  and  the  evils  experienced  on  one  side 
of  the  water  and  feared  on  the  other  were  mitigated 
by  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  general  progress  of  the 
age.  But  the  principle  contended  for,  —  civil  and 
religious  liberty,  —  remained  to  the  end. 

The  claim  of  the  high  churchmen  was  "  that  every 
country  acts  naturally  and  prudently  in  making  tho 
ecclesiastical  polity  conformable  to  its  civil  govern 
ment."  This  was  a  proposition  which  neither  the 
early  nor  the  later  Puritans  would  care  to  dispute, 
since  they  acted  upon  it  themselves.  Their  contention 
was  that,  their  civil  government  being  essentially  dem 
ocratic,  their  ecclesiastical  system  should  be  the  same. 
They  opposed  the  engrafting  of  the  prelatical  system, 
which  was  monarchical,  upon  their  system,  which  was 
republican,  well  knowing  the  tendency  of  ecclesiasti- 
cism  to  draw  to  itself  the  civil  government.  They  saw 
Monarchy  and  Episcopacy  as  correlated  facts,  and  in 
resisting  the  latter  they  resisted  the  former.  Such 
was  their  view  of  the  case ;  nor  were  the  facts  against 
them. 


34      JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

The  Church  of  England,  so  far  as  it  had  a  civil 
establishment,  was  the  creature  of  Parliament.  It 
looked  up  to  the  king  as  its  head,  and  to  the  Parlia 
ment  as  its  lawgiver.  Its  creed  and  book  of  prayer 
were  established  by  statute.  It  could  not  reform  its 
own  abuses.  Through  Parliament  the  laity  amended 
and  regulated  the  church.  The  election  of  the  bishops 
by  the  clergy  was  only  nominal.  The  purity  of  spirit 
ual  influence  was  tarnished  by  this  strict  subordina 
tion  to  the  temporal  power.1  This  was  the  system. 
Its  administration  was  siSll  more  objectionable  to  the 
Puritans.  Its  establishment  in  New  England  meant 
a  return  to  that  state  of  ecclesiastical  and  civil  affairs 
from  which  they  had  suffered  so  much,  and  from 
which  they  fled  to  the  privations  and  sufferings  of  an 
inhospitable  wilderness.2  So  at  least  they  regarded 
it,  and  the  efforts  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy  down  to 
the  Revolution  never  permitted  this  feeling  to  subside. 
Under  the  old  charter,  the  churches,  with  the  consent 
of  the  General  Court,  called  their  synods,  which  laid 
down  or  modified  their  platform  of  religious  faith  and 
ecclesiastical  government  according  to  the  convictions 
of  a  body  of  professed  Christians.  But  when  the  Con 
gregational  ministers  of  Massachusetts,  as  late  as 
1725,  memorialized  the  General  Court  for  permission 
to  hold  a  synod,  the  Bishop  of  London,  instigated  by 
the  Anglican  clergy  of  Boston,  brought  the  matter  to 

1  Bancroft,  History,  ed.  1883,  iii.  4 

2  The  Episcopate  would  legitimately  bring  in  the  whole  system  of 
canon  ecclesiastical  courts,  in  contravention  of  the  constitutional  judi 
cial  powers  of  the  provincial  courts ;  the  colonists  would  not,  how 
ever,  listen  to  the  suggestion  that  the  bishop's  power  would  be  merely 
spiritual,  for  they  feared  that,  as  Mayhew  expressed  it,  if  the  bishop's 
foot  was  once  in  the  stirrup  the  people  would  be  effectually  priest- 
ridden. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION      35 

the  attention  of  the  home  government ;  and  Yorke, 
afterwards  Lord  Hardwicke,  then  attorney-general, 
and  the  solicitor-general,  gave  as  their  official  opin 
ion  :  1.  That  synods  cannot  lawfully  be  held  without 
the  royal  license.  2.  That  an  application  to  the  pro 
vincial  legislature  was  a  contempt  of  the  sovereign  ; 
and,  3.  That  if  notice  of  this  should  find  them  (the 
synod)  in  session,  the  lieutenant-governor  should 
"  signify  to  them  .  .  .  that  they  do  forbear  to  meet 
any  more  ;  "  and,  if  they  persevere,  "  that  the  princi 
pal  actors  therein  be  prosecuted  by  information  for 
misdemeanors."  l  This  incident  of  colonial  history 
shows  that  the  objection  to  Anglicanism  was  not 
merely  theoretical,  for  it  invaded  the  constitution  of 
the  civil  government.  Its  adherents  were  generally 
on  the  side  of  prerogative  ;  and  John  Adams  has 
recorded  in  his  diary,  in  1765,  that  "  the  Church  peo 
ple  are,  many  of  them,  favorers  of  the  Stamp  Act  at 
present."  2 

However  we  of  the  present  generation  may  choose 
to  regard  the  apprehensions  of  the  Massachusetts  Pu 
ritans  and  their  descendants  late  into  the  last  century, 
in  respect  to  the  designs  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy, 
this  fact  —  and  it  is  the  only  fact  of  present  interest 

—  remains  clear  :  that  the  series  of  events  —  and  it  is 
their  continuity  which  should  be  particularly  noticed 

—  which  stand   to   the    Revolution    in   the    relation 
of  operative  sequence,  if  not  primarily  of  cause  and 
effect,  began  in  Massachusetts  Bay  with  the  coming 
of  the  Puritans ;  and  that  these  events  were  religious 
as  well  as  civil,  unless  the  true  expression  would  be, 
religious  rather  than  civil. 

1  Palfrey,  iv.  454,  and  the  admirable  Memoir  of  John  Checkley,  by 
Rev.  E.  F.  Slafter,  i.  86  (Prince  Society). 

2  Works,  ii.  168,  348. 


36      JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

Nor  was  the  ecclesiastical  element  as  a  cause  of  the 
Kevolution  restricted  to  Massachusetts.     It 

Ecclesias- 

ticism  in     entered  into  the  controversy  —  was  one  of 

Virginia.1    ^    causes  of  fae  Revolution  —  in  Virginia 

O 

as  well  as  in  Massachusetts,  but  with  a  difference. 
The  Puritans  fled  to  Massachusetts  because  they  hated 
Anglicanism ;  the  cavaliers  fled  to  Virginia  because 

1  When  this  address  was  delivered  in  1884,  it  was,  so  far  as  I  had  no 
ticed,  the  earliest  historical  presentation  of  ecclesiasticism  (associated 
with  political  liberty)  as  one  of  those  causes  which  brought  on  the 
Revolution.  I  restricted  the  influence  to  Massachusetts  and  Virginia ; 
not  that  I  did  not  suspect  that  it  was  far  more  general,  but  that  I  then 
lacked  authorities  for  a  positive  statement.  I  now  add  one  of  the 
most  remarkable,  showing  how  effective  ecclesiasticism  was  in  New 
York  as  leading  to  revolt.  It  is  in  a  letter  of  Ambrose  Serle  from 
New  York,  November  8,  1776,  to  Earl  Dartmouth  of  the  British  Min 
istry,  and  is  in  Stevens's  Facsimiles  of  Manuscripts,  vol.  xxiv.  No. 
2045. 

By  some  inadvertence  at  the  time  when  this  paper  was  preparing, 
I  failed  to  consult  Foote's  Annals  of  King's  Chapel.  Had  I  then  read 
this  work  I  should  have  seen  that  I  had  been  anticipated  in  my  views, 
and  have  acknowledged  the  industrious  research,  candor,  good  judg 
ment,  and  literary  ability  which,  as  I  think,  have  been  combined  in 
an  equal  degree  in  no  historical  work  by  an  American  since  Belknap's 
History  of  New  Hampshire. 

Grounding  myself  as  I  did  on  original  authorities  rather  than  on  later 
views,  it  was  thus  that  I  failed  to  read  Foote.  Had  I  done  so,  it  would 
have  saved  me  vast  labor  and  much  thought,  which  I  do  not  however 
now  regret,  for  I  was  enabled  to  form  an  independent  judgment 
which  happens  to  accord  with  that  of  Mr.  Foote. 

One  reason  for  the  opposition  in  New  York  (where  one  would  least 
expect  it)  to  Seeker's  plan  of  setting  up  Episcopacy  in  the  colonies  is 
found  in  a  paper  by  Charles  H.  Levermore,  in  The  American  Histori 
cal  Review,  vol.  i.  p.  238.  It  is  to  the  effect  that  the  Livingstons  and 
several  of  their  Whig  associates,  warm  asserters  of  civil  and  ecclesias 
tical  liberty,  were  graduates  at  Yale,  where,  at  that  time,  Calvinism 
and  hatred  of  prelatical  authority  were  no  less  violent  than  at  Harvard. 
The  whole  paper  should  be  read,  and  especially  pp.  240,  241,  and  248. 
See  regarding  New  York,  Grahame's  History,  ii.  305  ;  H.  A.  Gush- 
ing's  King's  College  in  the  American  Revolution  (Columbia  University 
Bulletin,  March,  1898). 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION       37 

they  hated  Puritanism.  The  Puritan  hostility  to 
Anglicanism  was  based  upon  the  profoundest  religious 
conviction.  It  was  transmitted  to  their  children,  and 
ever  associated  with  the  trials  and  sufferings  of  the 
first  generation.  It  was  kept  alive  by  the  unintermit- 
ting  efforts  of  the  English  hierarchy  to  establish  its 
ecclesiastical  system  in  the  Puritan  colonies.  What 
ever  may  have  been  the  feelings  of  the  Virginia  church 
men  in  the  days  of  the  Revolution  towards  the  Congre- 
gationalists  of  New  England,  owing  to  circumstances 
which  will  be  presently  narrated,  they  came  together 
on  the  ground  of  hostility  to  Anglicanism,  which,  as 
has  already  been  said,  was  a  cause  of  the  Revolution. 
It  was  one  cause  ; 1  no  one  claims  that  it  was  the  sole 
cause.  And  it  has  been  dwelt  upon  at  some  length, 
not  only  because  it  seems  to  have  failed  of  due  recog 
nition  in  the  historical  accounts  of  that  event,  but  also 
since  a  clear  understanding  of  the  matter  is  essential 
to  a  correct  view  of  the  position  of  Samuel  Adams 
the  Puritan,  one  of  the  prime  movers  of  the  Revolu 
tion,  as  well  as  somewhat  by  way  of  contrast  of  John 
Adams,  its  great  statesman.2 

1  Jonathan  Boucher,  writing  from  the  extreme  High  Church  view, 
puts  this  matter  in  an  interesting  light.    "  That  the  American  opposi 
tion  to  Episcopacy  was  at  all  connected  with  that  still  more  serious 
one  so  soon  afterwards  set  up  against  civil  government  was  not  indeed 
generally  apparent  at  the  time  [in  Virginia]  ;  but  it  is  now  [1797]  in 
disputable,  as  it  also  is  that  the  former  contributed  not  a  little  to  ren 
der  the  latter  successful.     As  therefore  this  controversy  was  clearly 
one  great  cause  that  led  to  the  Revolution,  the  view  of  it  here  given, 
it  is  hoped,  will  not  be  deemed  wholly  uninteresting."  —  View,  150. 

2  The  difference  was  this :  Samuel  Adams  was  a  Puritan  and  Cal- 
vinist  of  the  strictest  sect.     John  Adams  strenuously  dissented  from 
Calvinism,  but  firmly  adhered  to  the  doctrines  of  the  Puritans  con 
cerning  civil  and  religious  liberty,  and  regarded  with  equal  aversion 
the  designs  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy.    His  dissertation  on  the  Canon 
and  Feudal  Law,  already  alluded  to,  was  a  "  Tract  for  the  Times." 


38       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

The  union  between  Massachusetts  and  Virginia  in 
the  Revolution  has  been  alluded  to  ;  a  union  which, 
considering  the  respective  origin  and  history  of  the 
two  colonies,  was  incongruous  and  almost  grotesque ; 
a  union  of  the  descendants  of  the  fanatical  Puritans 
and  of  the  High  Church  loyalists,  of  the  roundhead 
and  of  the  cavalier.  And  yet  these  two  colonies  en 
tered  the  contest  earlier  than  any  other,  —  Virginia 
the  earlier,  if  it  is  regarded  as  merely  civil,  —  and 
were  mutually  helpful  and  steadfast  to  the  end.  This 
phenomenal  embrace  requires  explanation  to  the  by 
standers  from  both  parties. 

The  religion  of  Virginia  was  Anglican ;  and  it  was 
the  established  religion,  with  the  canons,  the  liturgy, 
and  the  catechism.  The  anniversary  of  the  execution 
of  Charles  I.  was  a  legal  fast,  and  the  restoration  of 
Charles  II.  was  a  holiday.  Besides  their  glebes  and 
parsonages,  a  maintenance  was  secured  to  the  parish 
ministers  in  valuable  and  current  commodities  of  the 
country ;  and  the  New  England  laws  against  Quakers, 

It  was  printed  in  the  year  of  the  Stamp  Act,  1765,  when  he  was 
twenty-nine  years  old,  and  shows  how  inseparably  ecclesiastical  and 
political  tyranny  were  associated  in  his  mind  as  things  of  present 
dread,  and  also  how  thoroughly  he  had  studied  the  questions  on  which 
in  later  years  he  exercised  a  commanding  influence.  He  was  fully  in 
accord  with  Mayhew,  Chauncy,  Eliot,  and  Samuel  Adams  in  their  hos 
tility  to  the  Anglican  pretensions  and  endeavors  to  establish  an  Epis 
copate  in  the  colonies.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he  asked,  "  Where  do 
we  find  a  precept  in  the  Gospel  requiring  ecclesiastical  synods,  convo 
cations,  councils,  decrees,  creeds,  confessions,  oaths,  subscriptions,  and 
whole  cart-loads  of  other  trumpery  that  we  find  religion  encumbered 
with  in  these  days  ?  "  —  Works,  ii.  5,  6.  "  Honesty,  sincerity,  and  open 
ness  I  esteem  essential  marks  of  a  good  mind.  I  am,  therefore,  of 
opinion  that  men  ought  (after  they  have  examined  with  unbiased  judg 
ments  every  system  of  religion,  and  chosen  one  system  on  their  own 
authority  for  themselves)  to  avow  their  opinions  and  defend  them 
with  boldness."  —  Works,  ii.  8. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE 


says  Hildreth,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  this  para 
graph,  were  in  full  force.1 

Devotion  to  the  church  was  a  test  of  devotion  to  the 
king  as  its  head  and  defender,  and  non-conformity  was 
identified  with  republicanism  and  disloyalty.2 

The  following  extract  will  serve  not  only  to  show 
the  views  of  a  Virginia  Anglican,  but  it  also  throws 
much  light  upon  the  attitude  of  the  New  England  Con- 
gregationalists  in  relation  to  the  introduction  of  Epis 
copacy  :  "  The  constitution  of  the  Church  of  England 
is  approved,  confirmed,  and  adopted  by  our  laws,  and 
interwoven  with  them.  No  other  form  of  church  gov 
ernment  than  that  of  the  Church  of  England  would  be 
compatible  with  the  form  of  our  civil  government.  No 
other  colony  has  retained  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
monarchical  part  of  the  British  Constitution  as  Vir 
ginia  ;  and  between  that  attachment  to  monarchy  and 
the  government  of  the  Church  of  England  there  is  a 
strong  connection."  3 

The  aspect  in  which  the  New  Englanders  appeared 
to  the  people  of  Virginia,  and  the  obstacles  to  be  sur 
mounted  in  securing  their  cordial  cooperation  in  the 
Revolution,  may  be  seen  in  the  same  author  :  "  That 
a  people  [Virginians]  in  full  possession  and  enjoy 
ment  of  all  the  peace  and  all  the  security  which  the 
best  government  in  the  world  can  give,  should,  at  the 
instigation  of  another  people  [New  Englanders],  for 
whom  they  entertained  an  hereditary  national  dis- 
esteem,  confirmed  by  their  own  personal  dislike,  sud 
denly  and  unprovoked,  and  in  contradiction  to  all  the 
opinions  they  had  heretofore  professed  to  hold  on  the 

1  History,  i.  512. 

2  Thompson's  Church  and  State,  34,  35. 

3  Boucher's  View,  103. 


40       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

subject  of  government,  rush  into  a  civil  war  against  a 
nation  they  loved  ....  is  one  of  those  instances  of  in 
consistency  in  human  conduct  which  are  often  met  with 
in  real  life,  but  which,  set  down  in  a  book,  seem  mar 
velous,  romantic,  and  incredible.  This,  however,  is  an 
unexaggerated  description  of  the  general  temper  of 
mind  which  prevailed  in  the  people  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland  towards  those  of  New  England."  1 

One  more  extract  from  the  same  writer  will  show 
the  approach  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  to  the 
same  ground  :  "  When  it  is  recollected  that  till  now 
[1771]  the  opposition  to  an  American  Episcopate  has 
been  confined  chiefly  to  the  demagogues  and  independ 
ents  of  the  New  England  provinces,  but  that  it  is 
now  espoused  with  much  warmth  by  the  people  of  Vir 
ginia,  it  requires  no  great  depth  of  political  sagacity 
to  see  what  the  motives  and  views  of  the  former  have 
been,  or  what  will  be  the  consequences  of  the  defection 
of  the  latter."2 

It  is  now  desirable  to  understand  by  what  circum 
stances  two  provinces  so  dissimilar  in  their  form  of 
government,  religion,  social  life,  and  general  habits  of 
thought  were  brought  together  on  the  common  ground 
of  hostility  to  Episcopacy,  which  was  so  considerable 
a  cause  of  the  Revolution. 

There  were  Puritans  in  Virginia,  though  but  a  hand 
ful,  who  in  the  early  days  of  the  colony  had  estab 
lished  relations  with  their  New  England  brethren. 
Commercial  relations  also  existed  between  these  col- 

1  Boucher,  xxxiv.    This  writer  suggests  in  a  note  that  the  New  Eng- 
landers  endeavored  to  overcome  these  prejudices  by  pitching-  on  Mr. 
Randolph,  a  Virginian,  to  be  the  first  president  of  Congress,  and  on 
Mr.  Washington,  who  was  also  a  Virginian,  to  command  the  American 
army. 

2  Ibid.  103. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      41 

onies,  and  some  points  in  their  civil  history  were  not 
dissimilar.  Both  had  suffered  from  the  repeal  of  their 
charters,  and  both  had  lived  in  chronic  dissatisfaction 
with  the  mother  country  ;  and  if  at  any  time  and  for 
any  cause  the  Revolution  had  failed  in  Massachusetts, 
it  would  not  have  been  hopeless  until  it  had  also  failed 
in  Virginia.  But  on  these  two  colonies  it  rested.  The 
constitution  of  Virginia,  when  compared  with  that  of 
Massachusetts,  was  monarchical,  and,  as  has  been  said, 
her  religion  was  Anglican,  and  it  was  the  established 
religion. 

In  1740  there  was  not,  so  far  as  is  known,  a  single 
Dissenting  congregation  in  Virginia  ;  but    Ecclesias. 
in  1770  there  were  eleven  Dissenting  min-    ticismin 
isters  regularly  settled,  who  had  each  from    poutiS^ 
two  to  four  congregations  under  his  care.1 

At  the  Revolution,  and  for  thirty  years  before,  Vir 
ginia  had  been  making  strenuous  efforts  to  throw  off 
the  Anglican  system,  so  far  at  least  as  related  to  its 
temporal  powers ;  and  during  the  same  period,  as 
always,  Massachusetts  was  as  strenuously  resisting  its 
imposition.  In  this  respect  they  were  alike.  But  the 
resemblance  ends  here.  In  the  latter  colony  it  was 
essentially  a  question  of  civil  and  religious  liberty  ;  in 
the  former  it  was  essentially  a  question  of  taxation. 

Every  one  is  familiar  with  the  case  between  the 
clergy  of  the  Established  Church  in  Virginia  and  the 
planters,  known  as  the  "  Parsons'  Case,"  which  gave 
first  occasion  to  Patrick  Henry  for  the  display  of  his 
unrivaled  eloquence.  It  arose  out  of  a  question  of 
tithes,  in  substance,  and  has  a  twofold  significance  in 
Revolutionary  history.  In  the  first  place,  it  served  to 
undermine  the  influence  of  the  Anglican  hierarchy  ; 

1  Boucher,  100. 


42       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

and  secondly,  it  drew  into  question  the  right  of  the 
king  to  set  aside  a  Virginia  law  respecting  a  matter 
essentially  domestic,  this  very  matter  of  tithes.  Sin 
gularly  enough,  it  united  ecclesiastical  and  civil  ques 
tions  as  causes  of  the  Revolution  in  Virginia  as  they 
had  been  united,  yet  with  a  difference,  in  Massa 
chusetts  from  the  beginning  of  her  settlement. 

If  we  desire  to  know  the  attitude  of  some  of  the  Vir 
ginians,  —  how  many  is  only  matter  of  conjecture,  — 
near  the  time  when  the  war  broke  out,  we  have  the 
most  authentic  intelligence.  Madison,  writing  to  Brad 
ford  in  Pennsylvania,  in  April,  1774,  says,  "  Our  As 
sembly  is  to  meet  the  1st  of  May,  when  it  is  expected 
something  will  be  done  in  behalf  of  the  Dissenters. 
Petitions,  I  hear,  are  already  forming  among  the  per 
secuted  Baptists,  and  I  fancy  it  is  in  the  thoughts  of 
the  Presbyterians  also,  to  intercede  for  greater  liberty 
in  matters  of  religion.  .  .  .  The  sentiments  of  .our 
people  of  fortune  and  fashion  in  this  respect  are 
vastly  different  from  what  you  have  been  used  to. 
That  liberal,  catholic,  and  equitable  way  of  thinking, 
as  to  the  rights  of  conscience,  which  is  one  of  the  char 
acteristics  of  a  free  people,  and  so  strongly  marks  the 
people  of  your  province,  is  but  little  known  among  the 
zealous  adherents  of  our  hierarchy.  .  .  .  Besides,  the 
clergy  are  a  numerous  and  powerful  body,  have  great 
influence  at  home  by  reason  of  their  connection  with 
and  dependence  on  the  bishops  and  crown,  and  will 
naturally  employ  all  their  arts  and  interest  to  depress 
their  rising  adversaries,  for  such  they  must  consider 
Dissenters  who  rob  them  of  the  good-will  of  the  people, 
and  may  in  time  endanger  their  livings  and  security." 
In  the  previous  January  he  wrote  to  the  same,  "I 
want  again  to  breathe  your  free  air.  .  .  .  Poverty  and 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION      43 

luxury  prevail  among  all  sorts  ;  pride,  ignorance,  and 
knavery  among  the  priesthood.  .  .  .  This  is  bad  enough, 
but  it  is  not  the  worst  I  have  to  tell  you.  .  .  .  There 
are  at  this  time  in  the  adjacent  county  not  less  than 
five  or  six  well-meaning  men  in  close  jail  for  publish 
ing  their  religious  sentiments,  which  in  the  main  are 
very  orthodox."  In  another  letter  to  the  same  he  says 
what  is  much  to  the  point,  "  If  the  Church  of  England 
had  been  the  established  and  general  religion  in  all 
the  northern  colonies,  as  it  has  been  among  us  here, 
and  uninterrupted  tranquillity  had  prevailed  through 
out  the  continent,  it  is  clear  to  me  that  slavery  and 
subjection  might  and  would  have  been  gradually  in 
sinuated  among  us."  1 

It  is  obvious  from  the  preceding  extracts  how  Madi 
son  regarded  the  efforts  of  the  New  England  Puritans 
in  their  resistance  to  the  imposition  of  Episcopacy ; 
but  that  he  was  not  pleased  with  all  their  conduct 
appears  from  the  following :  "  I  congratulate  you  on 
your  heroic  proceedings  in  Philadelphia  with  regard 
to  the  tea.  I  wish  Boston  may  conduct  matters  with 
as  much  discretion  as  they  seem  to  do  with  boldness." 
This  is  also  relevant  to  the  Eevolution :  "  I  verily 
believe  the  frequent  assaults  that  have  been  made  on 
America  (Boston  especially)  will  in  the  end  prove  of 
real  advantage."  2 

1  Letters  of  Madison,  i.  10  et  seq. 

2  Ibid.  10.    In  stating  the  motives  which  drew  the  people  into  the 
Revolution,  it  ought  not  to  be  concealed  that  there  were  some  not 
altogether  creditable.     Madison  gives  this :    "  As  to  the  sentiments  of 
the  people  of  this  Colony  with  respect  to  the  Bostonians  [in  regard  to 
the  Port  Bill],  I  can  assure  you  I  find  them  very  warm  in  their  favor. 
...  It  must  not  be  denied,  though,  that  the  Europeans,  especially  the 
Scotch,  and  some  interested  merchants  among  the  natives,  discoun 
tenance  such  proceedings  as  far  as  they  dare,  alleging  the  injustice  and 


44       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

From  the  foregoing  outline  of  a  phase  of  ecclesias 
tical  history  in  the  Massachusetts  Colony  may  be  seen 
how  early,  as  well  as  continuously,  the  religious  ele 
ment  operated  as  a  cause  of  the  Revolution  ;  and  how 
—  and  yet  with  what  difference  —  Virginia  came  to 
stand  on  the  same  ground  with  the  former  colony. 

Although   ecclesiasticism   stands    first   among   the 

causes   which   prepared    the   Massachusetts 

the  poiiti-  colonists  for  the  Revolution,  and  was  influ- 

lutiorTS     en^a^  *n  precipitating  that  event,   yet   the 

Massa-       event  itself  was  a  disruption  of  the  civil  and 

fcts'     political   relations    between  the  contending 

parties,  and  as  such  should  be  traced  to  its  origin. 

Soon  after  the  restoration  of  Charles  II.,  the  colo 
nies  came  to  have  a  common  grievance  in  the  opera 
tion  of  the  Navigation  Laws  and  Acts  of  Trade,1 
which  were  designed  to  pour  the  wealth  of  commerce 
into  the  lap  of  England,  and  by  the  prohibition  of 
certain  manufactures  in  the  colonies  to  create  a  mar 
ket  for  English  productions ;  but  previous  to  the 
Stamp  Act  there  was  no  British  regulation  which 

perfidy  of  refusing  to  pay  our  debts  to  our  generous  creditors  at  home." 
Ibid.  16.  Boucher  is  more  explicit  on  this  subject.  He  says,  "  Among 
other  circumstances  favorable  to  a  revolt  of  America,  that  of  the  im 
mense  debt  owing  by  the  colonists  to  the  merchants  of  Great  Britain 
deserves  to  be  reckoned  as  not  the  least.  It  was  estimated  at  three 
millions  sterling  ;  and  such  is  the  spirit  of  adventure  of  British  mer 
chants,  and  of  such  extent  are  their  capitals  and  their  credit,  that  not 
many  years  ago  I  remember  to  have  heard  the  amount  of  their  debts 
to  this  country  calculated  at  double  that  sum  :  it  is  probably  now 
trebled." —  View,  xl. 

1  "  If  any  man  wishes  to  investigate  thoroughly  the  causes,  feel 
ings,  and  principles  of  the  Revolution,  he  must  study  this  Act  of  Navi 
gation  and  the  Acts  of  Trade."  And  of  those  who  wrote  in  favor 
of  their  enforcement,  "  All  I  can  say  is,  that  I  read  them  all  in 
my  youth,  and  that  I  never  read  them  without  being  set  on  fire."  — 
Adams's  Works,  x.  320,  336. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION X  45 

produced  the  same  practical  results  in  all  the  colonies. 
Most  of  the  manufactures  were  in  New  England, 
while  her  lumber  and  the  tobacco  of  Virginia  —  for 
cotton  was  not  yet,  and  rice  and  indigo  were  grown 
only  on  a  limited  territory  of  the  Carolinas  —  consti 
tuted  the  bulk  of  American  commerce.  These  cir 
cumstances  served  to  bring  Massachusetts  and  Vir 
ginia  to  the  same  platform  in  the  Revolution.  They 
also  explain  in  some  degree  the  backwardness  of  some 
other  colonies  whose  interests  were  less  severely  af 
fected  by  the  British  commercial  policy.  But  these 
resemblances  in  certain  facts  of  Massachusetts  and 
Virginia  affairs  in  their  relation  to  the  common  cause 
should  not  lead  us  to  overlook  the  essential  differences 
in  their  civil  and  ecclesiastical  history. 

Massachusetts  history  more  immediately  concerns 
us.  Whatever  rights  the  king  may  have  intended  to 
confer  upon  the  members  of  the  Massachusetts  Com 
pany  by  their  charter  of  March  4,  1629,  two  things 
are  clear.  Firsj^4t  is  clear  that  the  charter  is  sus 
ceptible  of  a  legal  interpretation  which  makes  it  the 
basis  of  a  government  proper  with  very  large  powers, 
having  little  mere  than  a  formal  dependence  upon  the 
crown ; l  and  ^rc  is  equally  clear  that  the  colonists  ^ 
themselves  were  disposed  to  give,  and  did  give,  the 
most  liberal  construction  to  their  charter  powers. 
Hutchinson  says  of  them,  "  Upon  their  removal  they 
supposed  their  relations  both  to  civil  and  ecclesiasti 
cal  government  of  England,  except  so  far  as  a  special 
reserve  was  made  by  their  charter,  was  at  an  end,  and 
that  they  had  right  to  form  such  new  model  of  both 

1  See  the  discussion  of  this  subject  by  the  late  Prof.  Joel  Parker 
in  Lectures  before  the  Lowell  Institute  on  Early  History  of  Massa* 
chusetts,  357. 


46       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

as  pleased  them."  1  On  this  construction  of  their 
powers  they  acted. 

But  the  home  government  took  an  entirely  differ 
ent  view  of  their  powers,  as  well  as  of  the  conduct  of 
the  colonists  in  the  exercise  of  them.  As  early  as 
April  28,  1634,  a  commission  for  regulating  planta 
tions  was  issued  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  the 
Lord  Keeper,  and  others,  to  inquire,  besides  other  mat 
ters,  whether  any  privileges  or  liberties  granted  to  the 
colonists  by  their  charter  were  hurtful  to  the  king, 
his  crown,  or  prerogative  royal,  and  if  so,  to  cause 
the  same  to  be  revoked.2 

Here  began  the  long  contest  which  raged  with 
changing  fortunes  until  the  treaty  of  peace  in  1783. 
It  was  an  endeavor,  on  one  side,  to  set  up  and  main 
tain  a  free  and  essentially  independent  government ; 
V  and,  on  the  other  side,  to  overthrow  such  a  govern 
ment,  reduce  the  colonists  to  monarchical  subjection, 
and  regulate  their  affairs  agreeably  to  the  imperial 
policy.  To  such  a  contest  there  could  be  only  one 
result :  the  colonists  were  sure  to  win.  Growth,  de 
velopment,  a  boundless  continent,  remoteness,  the 
inherited  fierce  spirit  of  liberty  which  neither  fire  nor 
steel  had  been  able  to  subdue,  and  invincible  courage, 
in  time  would  settle  the  question.  It  was  a  question 
of  time,  and  this  they  seem  to  have  felt  all  through 
their  history  until  the  final  consummation  of  their 
expectations.  In  any  other  view  of  the  subject  their 
conduct  was  neither  consistent  nor  entirely  to  their 
credit. 

Chalmers,  an  accurate  though  unfriendly  historian, 
has  sketched  the  progress  of  the  colony  towards  inde 
pendency  for  the  first  fifty  years  in  the  following 

1  History  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  i.  368.         2  Parker,  ut  sup.  375. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      47 

words :  "  Massachusetts,  in  conformity  with  its  ac 
customed  principles,  acted,  during  the  civil  wars, 
almost  altogether  as  an  independent  state.  It  formed 
leagues,  not  only  with  the  neighboring  colonies,  but 
with  foreign  nations,  without  the  consent  or  know 
ledge  of  the  government  of  England.  It  permitted  no 
appeals  from  its  courts  to  the  judicatories  of  the  sov 
ereign  State,  without  which  a  dependence  cannot  be 
preserved  or  enforced.  And  it  refused  to  exercise 
its  jurisdiction  in  the  name  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
England.  It  assumed  the  government  of  that  part 
of  New  England  which  is  now  called  New  Hampshire, 
and  even  extended  its  powers  farther  eastward,  over 
the  province  of  Maine.  And  by  force  of  arms  it 
compelled  those  who  had  fled  from  its  persecution 
beyond  its  boundaries  into  the  wilderness  to  submit 
to  its  authority.  It  erected  a  mint  at  Boston,  im 
pressing  the  year  1652  on  the  coin  as  the  era  of  inde 
pendence  .  .  .  thus  evincing  to  all,  what  had  been 
foreseen  by  the  wise,  that  a  people  of  such  principles, 
religious  and  political,  settling  so  great  a  distance 
from  control,  would  necessarily  form  an  independent 
State."  l 

Chalmers's  statement  is  not  exaggerated.  It  mat 
ters  little  with  what  intent  respecting  their  future 
political  relations  the  colonists  embarked  for  Massa 
chusetts  Bay.  Their  ecclesiastical  independence  was 
an  avowed  purpose  from  the  beginning ;  and  circum 
stances  of  which  they  promptly  availed  themselves 
favored  the  formation  of  an  independent  civil  state. 
Nor  should  their  actual  condition  at  the  time  of  the 
Restoration  be  overlooked  in  reading  their  subsequent 
history  down  to  the  Revolution. 

1  Political  Annals,  181. 


48       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

This  state  of  affairs  in  the  Puritan  colony,  the 
refuge  of  the  Regicides,  could  hardly  have  been  other 
than  displeasing  to  Charles  II.  and  his  advisers. 
They  determined  to  change  it,  but  their  success  was 
partial  and  temporary.  Undoubtedly  the  loss  of  their 
charter  was  a  serious  blow  to  the  colonists.  It  was 
their  first  fall,  but  they  soon  regained  their  feet.  The 
substituted  government  under  the  presidencies  of 
Dudley  and  Andros  was  resisted  by  all  prudent 
means,  and  by  violence  even,  before  a  knowledge  of 
the  progress  of  the  Revolution  of  1689  had  opened  a 
fair  prospect  of  success.  The  charter  of  1692  was 
forced  upon  the  colonists  in  derogation  of  their  ac 
quired  constitutional  rights ;  and  had  they  then,  or  at 
any  time  down  to  the  Revolution  of  1775,  quietly  sub 
mitted,  the  result  would  have  been  serious  to  their 
liberties.  But  they  did  not  submit,  though  then,  as  at 
the  later  period,  there  were  those  who  counseled  sub 
mission.;  and  during  the  succeeding  century  there  were 
infractions  of  their  constitutional  rights,  in  which 
from  prudential  considerations  they  silently  acquiesced. 
The  king,  by  his  Court  of  Chancery,  abrogated  the 
first  charter,  and  imposed  upon  the  colony  one  less 
favorable  to  popular  rights.  Here  is  the  answer  of 
the  colonists  in  their  Declaration  of  Rights  of  the 
same  year,  entitled  an  act  setting  forth  general  privi 
leges  :  "  No  aid,  tax,  tallage,  assessment,  custom,  loan, 
benevolence,  or  imposition  whatsoever  shall  be  laid, 
assessed,  imposed,  or  levied  on  any  of  their  Majes 
ties'  subjects  or  their  estates,  on  any  color  or  pretence 
whatsoever,  but  by  the  act  and  consent  of  the  gov 
ernor,  council,  and  representatives  of  the  people,  assem 
bled  in  general  court."  1 

1  Acts  and  Resolves  Province  Massachusetts  Bay,  i.  40.     This  is  an 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      49 

It  is  not  easy  to  overestimate  the  importance  of 
this  Declaration  of  Colonial  Rights.     In  the  very  first 
year  of  the  new  charter  the  General  Court  opened  the 
contest  on  the  grounds  on  which,  eighty  years  later, 
after  some  preliminary  skirmishing  on  less  tenable 
positions,  the  battle   was   fought  and  independence 
won.     It  is  also  interesting  to  know  that  in  1765,  at  t 
which  time  John  Adams  intervened  in  public  affairs, 
in  his  first  public  address  before  the  governor  and 
council,  on  the  question  of  opening  the  courts  which 
had  been  closed  for  lack  of  stamps,  he  took  the  iden-  v 
tical  position  of   the    General   Court  in  1692  ;  and 
again,  in  the  general  Congress  of  1774,  in  the  Decla-    ' 
ration  of  Rights  of  the  colonies. 

Resistance  was  not  confined  to  mere  declarations. 
The  obstruction  by  the  colonies  of  the  Navigation  Laws 
and  Acts  of  Trade,1  their  assumption  of  powers  not 

early  expression  of  the  later  political  maxim,  ' '  No  representation,  no 
taxation  ;  "  but  the  meaning  of  "  representation,"  in  England  at  least, 
seems  to  have  been  different  from  that  in  the  colonies.     In  England, 
,   "  the  idea  was  that  representation  in  Parliament  was  constituted,  not 
i   by  the  fact  of  a  man's  having  a  vote  for  a  member  of  Parliament,  but 
by  the  fact  of  his  belonging  to  one  of  the  three  great  divisions  of  the 
\  nation  which  were  represented  by  the  three  orders  of  Parliament,  —  . 
,  that  is,  royalty,  nobility,  commonalty."  —  Moses  Coit  Tyler  in  Ameri- 
I  can  Historical  Review,  i.  34,  36.     Palfrey  says,  "  If  this  had  been  con 
firmed,  the  cause  of  dispute  which  brought  about  the  independence 
of  the  United  States  would  have  been  taken  away.     But  such  proved 
not  to  be  the  will  of  the  Privy  Council  of  King  William."  —  History,  iv. 
139.     This  statement  is  misleading.     It  is  quite  true  that  the  Council 
disallowed  the  whole  act,  but  fortunately  they  specified  the  grounds 
of  their  objections.     These  objections  relate  to  section  8,  respecting 
the  allowance  of  bail,  and  section  9,  which  relates  to  escheat  and  for 
feitures.     To  the  sections  which  declare  general  rights  —  the  colonial 
Magna  Charta  —  no  objections   were   made,  and  they  consequently 
retained  the  political  significance  which  inheres  in  all  unchallenged 
claims  of  right. 

1  In  1698,  when  the  General  Court  was  asked  to  pass  laws  enfor 
cing  the  Acts  of  Trade,  even  the  conservative  councilors  insisted 


50       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

granted  by  charter,  their  refusal  to  transmit  their  laws 
for  examination  or  to  allow  appeals  from  jtheir  judicial 
decisions,  at  length  produced  legitimate  results  in  Eng 
land  ;  and  in  1701,  as  oftentimes  later,  called  forth 
impatient  notes  of  warning  from  the  Board  of  Trade  : 
u  The  denial  of  appeals  is  a  humor  which  prevails  so 
much  in  proprietary  and  charter  plantations,  and  the 
independency  they  thirst  after  is  now  so  notorious, 
that  it  has  been  thought  fit  those  considerations  and 
other  objections  should  be  laid  before  the  Parlia 
ment."  l  But  these  warnings  and  threats  were  disre 
garded  until  the  patience  of  the  home  government 
was  exhausted  and  a  bill  for  the  repeal  of  the  charter 
was  introduced,2  which  failed  in  the  exigencies  of 
more  pressing  concerns. 

Under  the   first   charter   all   officers  were  elected 

"that  they  were  too  much  cramped  in  their  liberties  already,  and 
they  would  be  great  fools  to  abridge,  by  law  of  their  own,  the  little 
that  was  left  them.  "  —  Hildreth,  ii.  202.  This  spirit  became  hered 
itary.  John  Adams  has  said,  "  These  acts  never  had  been  executed, 
and  there  never  had  been  a  time  when  they  would  have  been  or  could 
have  been  obeyed."  —  Letter  to  Tudor,  March  29,  1818,  Novanglus, 
245. 

In  1728,  when  Governor  Burnett,  under  royal  instructions  insisted 
that  the  General  Court  should  fix  by  law  the  governor's  salary  instead 
of  leaving  it  to  depend  upon  the  temper  of  that  body  from  year  to 
year,  they  persistently  refused,  "  because  it  is  an  untrodden  path, 
which  neither  we  nor  our  predecessors  have  gone  in  ;  ...  because  it 
seems  necessary  to  form,  maintain,  and  uphold  our  constitution  ;  .  .  . 
because  it  is  our  undoubted  right  to  raise  and  dispose  of  moneys  for 
the  public  service  of  our  free  accord,  without  any  compulsion ;  and 
because,  if  we  should  now  give  up  this  right,  we  shall  open  a  door  to 
many  other  inconveniences."  —  See  Journal  of  the  General  Court. 

To  these  maxims  of  policy  and  government  they  and  their  succes 
sors  adhered  to  the  end,  notwithstanding  royal  menaces.  This  was 
revolution  as  clearly  as  any  declaration  which  more  immediately  pre 
ceded  the  war. 

1  Palfrey,  iv.  200. 

2  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  vii.  220. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION      51 

directly  or  indirectly  by  the  people ;  under  the  second 
charter  the  governor  was  appointed  by  the  crown, 
with  a  negative  upon  the  election  of  the  speaker  and 
councilors  chosen  by  the  House.  To  this  invasion  of 
their  old  constitution  the  people  lacked  the  power  of 
forcible  resistance  ;  but  the  popular  party,  under  the 
consummate  leadership  of  Cooke,  neutralized  the  gov 
ernor's  power  and  held  him  in  thrall  by  exercising 
their  constitutional  right  of  determining  his  salary. 
And  this  they  continued  to  do  with  exasperating  per 
sistency  and  disregard  of  the  royal  instructions  quite 
down  to  the  Ke volution.1 

1  Palfrey  has  graphically  described  the  chronic  contests  between 
the  royal  governors  and  the  representatives,  as  also  between  the  latter 
and  the  more  conservative  council,  all  of  which  is  more  fully  seen  in 
the  journal  of  the  House,  which,  from  1715  to  1730,  he  does  not  ap 
pear  to  have  consulted.  "  The  House  of  Representatives  began  to 
print  its  journal  just  before  the  beginning  of  Belcher's  administra 
tion,  the  first  publication  being  of  the  proceedings  of  May  27,  1730." 
—  History,  iv.  532  n.  This  is  erroneous.  The  printed  journals  of  the 
House  —  and  I  am  informed  that  they  exist  in  no  other  form  —  begin 
with  25th  May,  1715,  and  were  continued  without  interruption  till  the 
Revolution.  In  his  concluding  chapter  he  has  deemed  it  necessary  to 
excuse  the  conduct  of  the  popular  branch  towards  the  crown  and  its 
representatives.  But  this  depends.  If  the  people  of  Massachusetts, 
between  1692  and  1774,  their  original  charter  having  been  taken 
away  and  another  forced  upon  them,  regarded  themselves  as  within 
the  realm,  entitled  to  all  the  rights  and  immunities  of  British  subjects, 
and  bound  to  bear  their  share  of  the  burdens  imposed  by  the  imperial 
policy,  it  is  not  difficult  to  tmderstand  why,  in  the  eyes  of  the  govern 
ment  and  people  of  Great  Britain,  and  even  those  of  the  neighboring 
colonies,  their  conduct  was  regarded  as  captious  and  rebellious. 
Compared  with  the  burdens  borne  by  their  fellow-subjects  within 
the  three  kingdoms,  their  own  were  light,  and  their  condition  pros 
perous.  People  understand  the  operations  of  governmental  policy. 
They  know  how  unequally  tariffs  and  navigation  laws  affect  different 
sections,  classes,  and  interests  ;  and  yet  they  submit  to  them  for  rea 
sons  satisfactory  to  the  majority.  Our  ancestors  neither  liked  nor 
submitted  to  this  policy  ;  they  obstructed,  disobeyed,  and  evaded  its 
operation  so  far  as  was  consistent  with  their  safety.  Nor  could  they 


52       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

This  view  of  the  beginning  and  progress  of  the 
contest  which  ended  in  the  Revolution  might  be  sup 
ported  by  much  additional  evidence ;  but  I  trust  that, 
even  in  the  foregoing  imperfect  sketch,  it  fairly 
appears  that  the  Massachusetts  Puritans  came  to  the 
Bay  that  they  might  be  free  and  independent  in  their 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  affairs ;  that  with  the  first 
monition  of  danger  in  the  days  of  Charles  the  First 
they  determined  to  maintain  their  independence  at  all 
hazards ;  that  the  contest  thus  begun  continued  with 
varying  fortunes  until  the  final  decision  of  the  ques 
tions  involved  was  referred  to  arms  ;  and,  finally,  that 
during  these  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  contention 


endure  with  patience  or  treat  with  decent  respect  the  governors  sent 
to  rule  over  them,  and  still  less  the  natives  raised  to  that  high  hut 
most  uncomfortable  position.  From  one  point  of  view  it  is  difficult 
to  see  why  ;  for  these  representatives  of  the  crown,  in  ability,  learn 
ing,  character,  and  good  dispositions,  would  compare  favorably  with 
those  chosen  by  themselves  under  the  Constitution,  and  were  angels 
of  light  compared  with  those  we  have  inflicted  on  our  territories. 
Except  that  they  were  royal  governors,  it  is  not  easy  to  find  any  in 
superable  objection  to  Bellomont,  Shute,  Burnett,  Shirley,  or  even 
Bernard. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  we  find,  as  I  think  the  colonists  found, 
in  the  repeal  of  the  first  charter  and  the  imposition  of  a  royal  gov 
ernment  upon  a  people  essentially  free  and  independent,  the  justify 
ing  cause  of  irreconcilable  hostility,  and  an  invincible  determination 
to  throw  it  off  on  favorable  occasion,  then  their  ninety  years  of  strife, 
obstruction,  and  hostility  towards  the  crown  and  its  representatives, 
and  final  appeal  to  arms,  become  clear,  reasonable,  patriotic,  and 
worthy  of  perpetual  remembrance  and  benediction  —  and,  least  of 
all,  demand  apology. 

The  people  out  of  New  England,  except  the  Virginians,  had  no 
similar  experience,  and  but  little  knowledge  of  the  real  situation  of 
the  Massachusetts  Puritans.  Hence  it  is  not  strange  that  they,  in  com 
mon  with  those  of  the  British  Islands,  had  come  to  regard  the  Yan 
kees  with  prejudice  and  dislike  ;  or  that  with  reluctance  they  finally 
placed  themselves  on  the  Massachusetts  grounds,  as  they  did  under  the 
lead  of  John  Adams. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      53 

the  colonial  constitution  was  growing  and  developing 
itself  into  a  free  republican  constitution  as  the  basis, 
measure,  and  protection  of  all  their  rights. 

Against  this  background  of  civil  and  ecclesiastical 
history  John  Adams  appeared  on  the  Revo-  jo^n 
lutionary  stage.    He  had  studied  this  history  Adams's 

r  11      5  v    •    -A        -     nr~"v  attitude 

carefully,  and  its  significance  in  relation  to  to  the  Re- 
coming  events  he  fully  appreciated.  It  was  volution- 
revolution,  and  had  been  revolution  from  the  overthrow 
of  the  first  charter.  That  he  so  regarded  it  he  has 
expressly  told  us.  From  the  outset,  with  his  first 
public  utterance,  he  placed  himself  squarely  on  this 
basis  of  the  provincial  constitution  ;  and  there  he  stood, 
constant,  consistent,  to  the  end.  This  is  his  great  dis 
tinction.  From  it  he  overthrew  Hutchinson  and  Leon 
ard,  otherwise  unassailable.  Any  other  position  was 
full  of  logical  pitfalls  ;  this  was  sound,  clear,  tenable, 
and  on  it  the  contest  was  decided  in  Massachusetts. 

Had  the  history  of  the  other  colonies  been  the  same 
as  that  of  Massachusetts,  with  its  formative  influence 
upon  the  people  and  their  leaders,  the  decision  of  the 
question  would  have  been  the  same  as  hers,  and  the 
consummation  of  the  Revolution  would  have  been  com 
paratively  easy.  Had  Massachusetts  with  New  Eng 
land  finally  stood  alone,  the  day  of  her  deliverance 
must  have  been  postponed.  But  with  Virginia  and 
Massachusetts  in  alliance  —  and  notwithstanding  a 
general  dissimilarity  there  were  facts  common  to  their 
history  which  brought  them  shoulder  to  shoulder  — 
the  Revolution,  though  difficult,  was  not  impossible. 

It  was  this  difficulty  which  John  Adams  encoun 
tered  and  overcame  at  the  head  of  the  national  party 
which  he,  more  than  any  other  man,  gathered,  inspired, 
and  led. 


54       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

For  the  American  Kevolution,  like  all  epochal  move 
ments  in  the  direction  of  nationality  and  freedom, 
depended  upon  the  movement  of  parties.  These  now 
demand  our  notice. 

When  the  Revolutionary  struggle  in  Massachusetts, 
The  Rev-  w^c^  ^a(^  been  suspended  during  the  events 
oiution  in-  which  culminated  in  the  destruction  of  the 
5le>  French  power  in  America,  broke  out  anew 
with  the  Stamp  Act  of  1765,  there  seems  to  have  been 
a  feeling  common  to  all  the  colonies  that  growth, 
situation,  and  conflicting  interests  would  in  time  sever 
the  political  relations  which  existed  between  the  mother 
country  and  her  colonies  ;  and  this  opinion,  if  such 
that  may  be  called  which  so  vaguely  existed  in  their 
minds,  was  the  opinion  of  Hutchinson  and  Oliver  no 
less  than  of  James  Otis  and  Samuel  Adams.  It  is 
true  they  disclaimed  this,  sometimes  with  vehemence. 
John  Adams  did  so.1 

-He  said  that  at  no  time  before  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  was  he  averse  to  reconciliation,  and  that 
he  had  no  desire  to  see  the  relations  with  England 
severed.  There  is  abundant  similar  testimony.  The 
talk  of  the  warmest  of  the  patriots  was  full  of  loyalty 
to  the  king  and  of  affection  for  the  mother  country. 
Nor  were  they  insincere.  They  gloried  in  the  name 
of  Britons.  Ties  of  blood  and  attachment  to  the  old 
home  were  strong,  and  their  pulse  quickened  with 
memories  of  Pepperell  before  the  bastions  of  Louis- 
burg  and  of  Wolfe  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham. 

But  beliefs  are  not  necessarily  desires,  and  we  re- 

1  And  yet  he  has  told  us  that  long-  before  the  war  broke  out  he  and 
Jonathan  Sewall,  the  loyalist,  agreed  in  their  sentiments  respecting 
public  affairs,  and  both  were  of  the  opinion  that  the  British  ministry 
and  Parliament  would  force  the  colonists  to  appeal  to  arms.  —  Works, 
ii.  78. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      55 

cognize  as  inevitable  many  things  which  we  deprecate. 
Could  the  colonists  have  been  blind  to  facts  and  ten 
dencies  which  all  the  world  saw  ?  The  testimony  on 
this  point  is  clear  and  decisive.  The  following  are 
only  a  few  of  the  observations  which  have  been  col 
lected  by  writers  on  this  period  of  our  history.  In  his 
notes  upon  England,  which  were  probably  written 
about  1750,  Montesquieu  had  dilated  upon  the  restric 
tive  character  of  the  English  commercial  code,  and 
had  expressed  his  belief  that  England  would  be  the 
first  nation  abandoned  by  her  colonies.  A  few  years 
later,  Argenson,  who  has  left  some  of  the  most  strik 
ing  political  predictions  upon  record,  foretold  in  his 
memoirs  that  the  English  colonies  in  America  would 
one  day  rise  against  their  mother  country,  that  they 
would  form  themselves  into  a  republic,  and  that  they 
would  astonish  the  world  by  their  prosperity.  In  a 
discourse  delivered  before  the  Sorbonne  in  1750,  Tur- 
got  compared  the  colonies  to  fruits  which  only  remain 
on  the  stem  till  they  have  reached  the  period  of  ma 
turity,  and  he  prophesied  that  America  would  some 
day  detach  herself  from  the  parent  tree.  Still  earlier 
than  Turgot's  prophecy,  Kalm,  the  Swedish  traveler, 
contended  that  the  presence  of  the  French  in  Can 
ada,  by  making  the  English  colonists  depend  for  their 
security  on  the  support  of  the  mother  country,  was  the 
main  cause  of  the  submission.1 

But  more  decisive  as  to  the  prevalence  of  this  belief 
among  the  colonists  are  some  of  their  own  words.  Dr. 
Andrew  Eliot,  writing  to  Hollis  in  England,  Decem 
ber,  1767,  says,  "  We  are  not  ripe  for  a  disunion ;  but 

1  See  Lecky's  History  of  the  Eighteenth' Century,  iii.  290.  Bancroft 
has  also  treated  this  question  in  his  History  of  the  United  States  ;  and 
see  Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic,  245. 


56       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

our  growth  is  so  great  that  in  a  few  years  Great  Bri 
tain  will  not  be  able  to  compel  our  submission  ;  "  l  and 
in  1772  Dr.  Charles  Chauncy  said  "  that  in  twenty- 
five  years  there  would  be  more  people  here  than  in 
the  three  kingdoms,  the  greatest  empire  on  earth."  2 

But  no  one  save  John  Adams  expressed  this  under 
current  of  thought  so  clearly  as  William  Livingston 
in  1768  :  "  Americans,  the  finger  of  God  points  out 
a  mighty  empire  to  your  sons.  .  .  .  The  day  dawns  in 
which  this  mighty  empire  is  to  be  laid  by  the  estab 
lishment  of  a  regular  American  Constitution.  .  .  . 
Peace  or  war,  famine  or  plenty,  poverty  or  affluence, 
—  in  a  word,  no  circumstance,  whether  prosperous  or 
adverse,  can  happen  to  our  parent ;  nay,  no  conduct 
of  hers,  whether  wise  or  imprudent  —  no  possible  tem 
per  of  hers,  whether  kind  or  cross-grained  —  will  put 
a  stop  to  this  building.  There  is  no  contending  with 
omnipotence  ;  and  the  predispositions  are  so  numerous 
and  well  adapted  to  the  rise  of  America  that  our  suc 
cess  is  indubitable."  3 

No  one  can  read  the  history  of  the  colony  in  its 
original  sources  without  meeting  evidence  or  the  exist 
ence  of  the  belief  that  the  time  would  come  when  the 
colonies  would  grow  into  a  great  and  independent  em 
pire.  Not  that  they  wished  to  set  up  for  themselves 
at  once.  On  the  contrary,  quite  apart  from  any  senti 
ment  of  loyalty,  it  is  not  improbable  that  they  were 
too  fully  sensible  of  the  advantages  of  their  position 
as  appendages  of  the  crown,  with  the  privilege  of 
drawing  upon  the  imperial  resources  in  warding  off 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  xxxiv.  420. 

2  Adams's  Works,  ii.  304.  • 

3  The  American  Whig,  quoted  with  variations  by  Boucher,  View, 
xxvi.,  and  by  Frothingham,  Rise  of  the  Republic,  244. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      57 

the  attacks  of  the  French,  which  as  independent  colo 
nies  they  would  be  obliged  to  meet  with  their  own 
men  and  money.  Nor  did  they  look  forward  to  any 
definite  time  when  it  would  be  for  their  advantage  to 
terminate  these  relations,  nor  to  any  specific  course  of 
action  which  would  hasten  that  event.  Nevertheless, 
their  political  action  tended  to  render  that  result  in 
evitable,  nor  was  the  feeling  which  inspired  this  ac 
tion  allowed  to  subside ;  for,  from  the  earliest  days 
down  to  the  war,  whenever  they  showed  restiveness 
under  the  British  rule  they  were  charged  with  aiming 
at  independence.1 

The  Massachusetts  colonists  may  not,  as  they  said, 
have  aimed  at  an  independence,  yet  they  steadily,  and 
seemingly  not  unconsciously,  pursued  a  course  which 
would  inevitably  lead  to  it. 

From  the  first  it  seems  to  have  been  inevitable  that 
the  political  relations  between  Great  Britain  and  her 
colonies  in  America  should  be  finally  severed ;  but 
when  and  how  —  whether  by  the  silent  influence  of 
growth  or  as  the  result  of  violence  —  were  questions 
in  abeyance,  and  subject  to  chance.  The  lots  were 
cast,  and  it  was  war. 

But  war  was  not  resorted  to  merely  as  the  solution 
of  difficulties  which  arose  from  the  growth    The  Rev 
and  development  of  the  colonies.     They  had    oiution 
not  reached  that  stage  —  in  time  sure  to  come    fatedfby 
—  when  union  made  subjugation  impossible,    party  ac- 
Undertaken  solely  on  that  ground,  the  war, 
as  we  now  see,  was  premature.    The  colonies  were  not 
ripe  for  it.    Nor  were  they  strong  enough  for  it.    Un 
aided,  they  would  have  failed,  as  fail  they  did  until 

1  See  Evelyn's  Diary,  May  26,  1671,  et  seq.  Also  a  letter  from 
Dummer  to  the  House,  quoted  in  Palfrey,  iv.  407  n. 


58  JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

aided.  The  war  was  precipitated  by  party  action  in 
Massachusetts.  The  opposite  view,  which  has  led  to 
infinite  misconception  of  the  Revolutionary  struggle, 
finds  countenance  only  in  the  general  and  apparently 
spontaneous  uprising  of  the  continent  in  resistance  to 
the  Stamp  Act.  But  that  demonstration  was  utterly 
deceptive,  as  afterwards  appeared,  so  far  as  it  seemed 
to  indicate  any  settled  conviction  and  determination. 
It  was  a  commercial  protest,  backed  by  no  ulterior 
purpose  of  forcible  resistance.  The  repeal  of  the  act, 
notwithstanding  the  reaffirmance  of  the  principle  in 
the  Declaratory  Act,  apparently  satisfied  the  public 
mind  everywhere  out  of  New  England  —  perhaps  out 
of  Massachusetts.  It  seems  to  have  been  so  even  in 
Virginia.  Jefferson's  statement  on  this  point  is  clear, 
and  it  is  decisive.  In  Virginia,  between  1769  and 
1773,  he  says,  "  Nothing  of  particular  excitement  oc 
curring  for  a  considerable  time,  our  countrymen  seemed 
to  fall  into  a  state  of  insensibility  to  our  situation  ; 
the  duty  on  tea  not  yet  repealed,  and  the  Declaratory 
Act  of  a  right  in  the  British  Parliament  to  bind  us  by 
their  laws  in  all  cases  whatsoever  still  suspended  over 
us."  And  John  Adams,  as  late  as  1772  writes,  "  Still 
quiet  at  the  southward ;  and  at  New  York  they  laugh 
at  us." 

This  doubtless  correctly  represents  the  apathy  every 
where  prevailing  out  of  Massachusetts.  The  real  state 
of  the  case  seems  to  have  been,  if  the  colonies  are 
regarded  as  a  whole,  that  the  opposition  to  the  British 
acts  was  based  on  pecuniary  interests  rather  than  on 
deeply  seated  political  convictions  ;  and  when  the  im 
mediate  danger  of  taxation  passed  away,  the  popular 
hostility  subsided,  as  Jefferson  says.  But  the  situa 
tion  in  Massachusetts  was  peculiar.  In  the  first  place, 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      59 

the  ecclesiastical  question,  instead  of  being  one  of 
tithes  and  of  yesterday,  as  in  Virginia,  was  as  old  as 
the  colony,  and  laid  hold  on  the  deepest  and  most 
sacred  convictions  of  the  people  ;  and,  as  we  have  seen, 
it  was  a  burning  question,  entirely  independent  of  any 
question  of  parliamentary  taxation,  and  wholly  un 
affected  by  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act  or  the  modi 
fications  of  the  other  revenue  measures.  And  in  the 
next  place,  as  we  have  also  seen,  there  had  always 
existed  in  Massachusetts  as  in  no  other  colony  two 
distinctly  arrayed  parties  divided  on  questions  directly 
leading  up  to  colonial  independence.  And  in  these 
circumstances  rather  than  in  any  exclusive  virtue  or 
intelligence  of  this  colony  —  I  speak  this  with  bated 
breath  —  is  to  be  found  the  reason  why  Massachusetts 
was  earliest  and  most  persistent  in  the  war  to  which 
she  furnished  nearly  one  third  of  the  troops  brought 
into  the  field,  although  her  territory  before  the  close 
of  the  first  year  was  freed  from  the  foot  of  the  in 
vader. 

The  war  began  in  Massachusetts.  "  It  was  brought 
on  by  the  action  of  parties.  These  parties,  the  radi 
cals  and  the  conservatives,1  were  as  old  as  the  race, 
and  will  survive  with  it.  They  came  over  with  Win- 
throp.  At  first  these  graduates  of  old  Cambridge 
were  sufficiently  though  somewhat  incongruously  oc 
cupied  in  framing  ordinances  respecting  yoking  and 

1  Adams  to  Jefferson :  "  You  say  our  divisions  began  with  Federal 
ism  and  anti- Federalism.  Alas !  they  began  with  Iniman  nature  ;  they 
have  existed  in  America  from  its  first  plantation.  ...  A  Court  and 
Country  party  have  always  contended.  Whig  and  Tory  disputed  very 
sharply  before  the  Revolution  and  in  every  step  during  the  Revolu 
tion.  Every  measure  of  Congress  from  1774  to  1787  inclusively  was 
disputed  with  acrimony,  and  decided  by  as  small  majorities  as  any 
question  is  decided  in  these  days  "  [1812].  — Works,  x.  23. 


60       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

ringing  of  swine,  party  fences,  and  the  laying  out  of 
townways  and  highways ;  but  these  affairs  with  some 
others  of  more  importance  attended  to,  and  interstate 
affairs  after  the  subsidence  of  Laud's  demonstrations 
being  in  abeyance,  they  divided  on  theological  pole 
mics,  and  thus  preserved  the  civilization  which  was 
imperiled  in  a  frozen,  savage  wilderness.  But  the 
arrival  of  Charles's  commissioners  in  1664  made  hot 
work  for  both  parties ;  and  the  historian  of  New  Eng 
land  has  recorded  "  that  before  the  close  of  the  first 
century  political  parties  had  arrayed  themselves  not 
only  upon  local  questions,  but  also  upon  questions  of 
the  relation  of  the  Colonies  to  the  Empire" 

With  the  inauguration  of  the  new  government  in 
1692  party  strife  was  renewed,  and  continued  with 
intervals  of  repose  through  the  entire  provincial 
period.  Party  questions  were  somewhat  in  abeyance 
through  the  French  wars  to  the  treaty  of  peace  in 
1763,  but  became  grave  during  the  period  of  commer 
cial  torpidity  which  ensued,  and  rancorous  upon  the 
passage  of  the  Stamp  Act  in  1765.  Nor  are  we  per 
mitted  to  believe  that  the  magnitude  of  the  interests 
involved  or  the  serious  consequences  likely  to  flow 
from  erroneous  action  preserved  the  discussion  from 
intemperance,  or  that  conclusions  were  reached  with 
sole  reference  to  the  public  weal.  Contemporaneous 
newspapers  and  pamphlets  and  the  published  proceed 
ings  of  the  people  in  town  meeting  assembled,  and  of 
their  representatives  in  the  General  Court,  contain 
ample  evidence  that  the  party  heats,  personal  interests, 
and  mob  violence,  to  which  many  of  those  now  living 
were  witnesses  in  the  late  civil  war,  had  their  proto 
types  in  the  Revolutionary  era. 

At  both  epochs  and  in  both  parties  were  found  rad- 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      61 

icals  and  conservatives,  statesmen  and  politicians,  pa 
triots  and  self-seekers,  intelligent  adherents  and  blind 
party  devotees.  At  both  epochs  and  in  both  parties, 
in  the  name  of  liberty  and  under  the  guise  of  patriot 
ism,  against  persons  whose  only  offense  was  a  silent 
adherence  to  their  own  convictions,  were  committed 
acts  of  violence  instigated  in  the  frenzy  of  party  by 
those  whose  names  and  character  should  constitute 
denial,  and  recorded  without  disapprobation  by  his 
torical  partisans. 

In  the  Revolution  parties  were  outlined  by  the  gen 
eral  principles  of  their  respective  adherents,  but  were 
by  no  means  homogeneous.  There  were  those  in  the 
governmental  or  Tory  party,  as  it  then  began  to  be 
called,  who  doubted  neither  the  omnipotence  of  Par 
liament  over  the  colonies  nor  the  wisdom  of  its  exer 
cise  in  levying  a  tax,  while  others  were  satisfied  with 
the  affirmation  of  the  right.  And  in  the  patriotic 
party  many  deprecated  a  resort  to  forcible  resistance 
who  strenuously  denied  the  British  pretensions.  Of 
these  Franklin  and  Dickinson  were  the  most  emi 
nent  ;  and  as  late  as  1776  their  opinions  were  the 
opinions  of  the  majority  out  of  New  England.1 

Adams  writes  to  Plumer :  "  You  inquire  whether 
every  member  of  Congress  did,  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1776,  in  fact  cordially  approve  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  1  then  believed,  and  have  not  since 
altered  my  opinion,  that  there  were  several  who  signed 
with  regret  and  several  others  with  many  doubts  and 
much  lukewarmness."  2 


1  See  Franklin's  letters  in  Tudor's  Otis,  392  n.,  and  Magazine  of 
American  History,  September,  1883,  article  "  Dickinson  ;  "   also  Hil- 
dreth,  iii.  45,  57,  77. 

2  Works,  x.  35.     See  Frothingham,  Else  of  the  Republic,  514  et  seq. 


62       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

With  the  exception  of  the  clergy,  the  party  affilia 
tions  of  no  class  could  be  accurately  predicted.  Par 
ents  and  children,  brothers  and  sisters,  and  lifelong 
friends  found  themselves  arrayed  in  hostile  ranks  as 
religious  and  political  convictions,  marriage,  social 
relations,  interest,1  or  even  accident,  dictated. 

The  number  of  the  people  in  each  of  these  parties 
is  not  susceptible  of  precise  determination,  and  varied 
somewhat  with  the  changing  fortunes  of  the  contest. 
Many  of  those  who  finally  adhered  to  the  crown  were 
among  the  most  earnest  denunciators  of  the  Stamp 
Act.  John  Adams  has  recorded  it  as  his  opinion  that 
"  in  1765  the  colonies  were  jnore  unanimous  than 
they  have  been  since,  either  as  colonies  or  states." 
From  1760  to  1766  was  the  purest  period  of  patriot 
ism,  from  1766  to  1776  was  the  period  of  corruption. 
This  agrees  with  the  opinion  of  Jefferson,  so  far  as 
he  refers  to  the  same  period.  Nor  is  there  anything 
unusual  in  this  phase  of  parties.  So  long  as  dissat 
isfaction  was  expressed  by  declarations  of  rights,  or 
even  mob  violence,  patriotism  was  cheap ;  but  when  it 
became  apparent  that  affairs  were  drifting  to  armed 
resistance,  uncertain  in  its  issue,  many  who  had  been 
conspicuous  as  patriots  drew  back,  and  finally  en 
trusted  their  fortunes  to  the  government  as  the 
stronger  party. 

Of  the  barristers  in  Boston  and  its  immediate  vicin 
ity,  Thacher  died  in  1765,  Otis  became  incapacited 
in  1771.  Five  were  loyalists,  and  John  Adams  alone 

1  "  The  managers  of  our  public  affairs,  like  those  on  your  side  of 
the  Atlantic,"  writes  Dr.  Eliot  to  Thomas  Hollis,  December  10,  1767, 
"  are  governed  by  private  views  and  the  spirit  of  a  party.  Few  have 
any  regard  to  the  good  of  the  public.  Men  are  patriots  till  they  get 
in  place,  and  then  they  are  !  !  !  anything."  —  Massachusetts  Historical 
Collections,  xxxiv.  414. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       63 

lived  through  the  Revolution  as  the  advocate  of  Amer 
ican  independence.     Twenty-four  of  the  prin 
cipal  barristers  and  attorneys  in  the  colony    ty  of  the 
and    one    hundred    and    twenty-three    mer-    J°gyal" 
chants  and  traders,  including  a  few  others 
in  Boston,  signed  the  address  to  Governor  Hutchin- 

"  O 

son,  May  30,  1774;  and  similar  addresses  to  Gov 
ernor  Gage,  as  late  as  October  14,  1775,  were  signed 
by  the  same  class  of  people,  and  in  still  larger  pro 
portion  to  the  population,  in  Salem  and  Marblehead. 
Plymouth  County  was  the  stronghold  of  the  loyalists.  f 
On  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  March  17,  1776,  Sir 
William  Howe  was  accompanied  by  fifteen  hundred 
of  these  people  ;  and  in  September,  1778,  the  General 
Court  specified,  in  an  act  forbidding  their  return,  the 
names  of  more  than  three  hundred  citizens  in  the  sev 
eral  counties.  These  numbers  include  only  those  who 
were  conspicuous  as  landed  proprietors  or  in  the  mer-  ]• 
cantile  and  professional  classes.  The  Tories  were  in 
possession  of  the  principal  offices  in  the  gift  either  \\ 
of  the  crown  or  the  people.  As  the  conservative 
party  and  having  something  to  lose,1  they  were  sat- 

1  John  Adams  gives  the  impressions  which  the  wealthy  delegates 
from  the  other  colonies  to  the  Congress  of  1774  had  received  in  re 
spect  to  those  of  Massachusetts.  It  had  been  represented  to  them 
that  Hancock  was  fortunately  sick,  and  Mr.  Bowdoin's  relations 
thought  that  his  large  estate  ought  not  to  be  put  to  hazard.  So  they 
sent  Mr.  Gushing,  who  was  a  harmless  kind  of  man,  but  poor  and 
wholly  dependent  on  his  popularity  for  his  subsistence  ;  Mr.  Samuel 
Adams,  who  was  a  very  artful,  designing  man,  but  desperately  poor, 
and  wholly  dependent  on  his  popularity  with  the  lowest  vulgar  for 
his  living ;  and  John  Adams  and  Robert  Treat  Paine,  who  were  two 
young  lawyers  of  no  great  talents,  reputation,  or  weight,  who  had  no 
other  means  of  raising  themselves  into  consequence  than  by  courting 
popularity.  And  they  were  all  suspected  of  having  independence  in 
view.  —  Works,  ii.  512.  This,  of  course,  is  John  Adams's  statement, 
and  it  contains  so  much  of  truth  and  significance  as  to  enhance  our 
estimate  of  his  candor. 


64       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

isfied  with  the  existing  order  of  things,  and  in  that 
state  of  mind  found  it  easy  to  indulge  the  sentiment 
of  loyalty  which  inheres  in  the  British  subject  in  all 
lands  so  long  as  he  is  allowed  to  do  as  he  pleases. 
Not  that  the  Tories  were  fonder  of  paying  taxes  than 
were  the  patriots,  but  they  were  content  when  the  ob 
noxious  tax  was  repealed,  and  were  disinclined  to  make 
an  issue  on  the  Declaratory  Act  which  proclaimed  the 
parliamentary  right  to  tax.  To  these  political  senti 
ments  was  united  the  profoundest  conviction  that  the 
colonists,  unaided,  could  never  withstand  the  power  of 
the  empire  when  put  forth  in  its  might,  and  that  the 
hope  of  friendly  intervention  by  the  continental  powers 
of  Europe  was  a  dream  sure  to  be  interrupted  by  a 
rude  awakening.  As  the  event  showed,  this  was  their 
fatal  mistake. 

Such  was  the  party  of  the  goverment,  or  the  Loyal 
ists.  Such  was  the  formidable  party,  intrenched  in 
wealth,  office,  and  social  influence,  which  confronted 
John  Adams  and  his  associates ;  and  it  is  his  and 
their  glory  to  have  overthrown  it. 

The  patriotic  party  is  less  easily  described,  since  it 
contained  many  heterogeneous  elements.  As 
Patriotic  a  whole  it  was  the  party  of  the  opposition, 
Party.  such  as  is  always  found  under  all  forms  of 
government.  In  Massachusetts  its  formation  on  well- 
defined  issues  antedates  by  more  than  a  hundred  years 
the  resistance  to  the  Stamp  Act,  and  was  coeval  with 
the  inauguration  by  Charles  II.  of  those  measures  de 
signed  to  reduce  the  colonies  to  subjection.  The  real 
purpose  of  this  party,  though  seldom  avowed,  was 
from  the  first  substantial  independence  of  the  crown 
of  England.  At  no  time  was  it  troubled  with  scru- 

o 

pies.     It    hoped    immunity   from   the    chastisement 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      65 

threatened  by  the  king  in  his  embroilment  in  foreign 
wars.1  It  resisted  the  abrogation  of  the  old  charter  ; 
it  imprisoned  Andros  and  Dudley;  and  when  resist 
ance  proved  unavailing,  it  sought  to  save  the  liberties 
of  the  people  by  neutralizing  the  anti-democratic  ele 
ments  in  the  new  charter  of  1692.  The  struggle  thus 
begun  never  changed  its  character,  and,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  never  ceased  until  the  peace  of  1783. 
Two  things  must  never  be  lost  sight  of.  First,  that 
this  resistance  was  the  resistance  of  a  party.  From 
the  first  stage  of  the  contest  to  the  last  there  was 
a  Tory  party  which  counseled  submission ;  and  this 
party  was  proportionally  more  numerous  in  its  early 
than  in  its  later  stage.  Secondly,  that  from  first  to 
last  the  action  of  the  patriotic  party  was  resistance 
and  obstruction.  It  was  not  the  attitude  of  slaves 
|  seeking  their  freedom,  but  of  freemen  resisting  subju- 
I  gation.  The  difference  is  immense,  and  on  its  per 
ception  depends  a  knowledge  of  the  real  character  of 
the  American  Revolution,  which  was  the  final  victory 
in  a  hundred  years  of  party  strife,  with  unbroken  con 
tinuity  of  unvaried  purpose,  —  the  maintenance  of 
independence  rather  than  its  acquirement,  —  originat 
ing  in  a  province,  but  at  length,  and  mainly  through 
the  influence  of  John  Adams,  enkindling  the  heart  of 
a  continent. 

Besides  reasons  of  state  which  embittered  the  colo 
nists  were  some  of  a  personal  nature,  affecting  those 
especially  who  suffered  under  the  usurpation  of  An 
dros  or  were  displaced  by  Dudley.  This  personal 

1  "  They  say, "  writes  a  commissioner  in  1665,  "  they  can  easily 
spin  out  seven  years  by  -writing1,  and  before  that  time  a  change  may 
come  ;  nay,  some  have  dared  to  say,  who  knows  what  the  event  of  this 
Dutch  war  may  be  ?  "  Calendar  of  State  Papers,  quoted  by  Pro 
fessor  Seeley,  Expansion  of  England,  68  n. 


66       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

element  was  never  absent  from  the  contest  in  any  of 
its  stages,  and  finally  became  one  of  the  most  potent 
forces  in  arraying  the  Massachusetts  colonists  in 
armed  hostility  to  British  authority. 

The  lull  of  political  excitement  during  the  French 
war  was  only  temporary.  With  the  restoration  of 
peace  the  people,  no  longer  distressed  by  the  anxieties 
occasioned  by  war  and  irritated  by  the  operations  of 
the  Anglican  hierarchy,  were  ready  to  give  ear  to  the 
whisperings  concerning  the  ministerial  purpose  to 
raise  a  revenue  in  America.  The  passage  of  the 
Stamp  Act  in  1765  left  no  doubt  on  that  subject. 
This  was  the  occasion  for  the  reopening  of  old  party 
questions,  and  party  strife  ensued,  which  continued 
with  scarcely  any  mitigation  until  the  war. 

But  this  was  true  chiefly  of  Massachusetts.  In  the 
colonies  to  the  southward  the  repeal  of  the  act  was 
followed  by  the  general  apathy  which  so  much  alarmed 
and  disgusted  Jefferson.  The  facts  verified  the  con 
jecture  of  Franklin.  In  his  examination  before  the 
Commons  in  1766,  he  was  asked  if  the  Americans 
would  be  satisfied  with  the  repeal  of  the  Stamp  Act, 
notwithstanding  the  resolutions  of  Parliament  as  to 
the  right ;  and  his  answer  was,  "  I  think  the  resolu 
tions  of  Right  will  give  them  very  little  concern  if 
they  are  never  attempted  to  be  carried  into  practice." 

Additional  reasons  for  the  apparent  change  in  pub 
lic  sentiment  may  be  conjectured.  At  first  it  seems 
not  to  have  been  generally  understood  that  all  sums 
raised  in  America  by  taxation  were  to  be  expended 
there  in  the  defense  and  government  of  the  country. 
To  this  there  doubtless  were  good  practical  and  con 
stitutional  objections  ;  but  these  would  not  be  likely 
to  strike  the  common  mind  with  the  same  force  as  a 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      67 

project  to  replenish  the  British  exchequer  from  the 
pockets  of  the  colonists.  Nor  was  it  unlikely  that  the 
acts  of  violence  which  everywhere  accompanied  the 
popular  expression  of  disapprobation  of  the  measure 
should  on  second  thought  cause  some  apprehension 
in  the  minds  of  those  friendly  to  law  and  order. 
Property  also  became  alarmed. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  reasons  for  the 
popular  falling  off,  there  can  be  no  question  as  to  the 
fact ;  and  if  it  had  been  true  in  the  same  degree  in 
Massachusetts  as  in  the  other  colonies,  it  is  doubtful 
whether  the  conflict  would  have  occurred  when  it 
did. 

In  Massachusetts,  however,  there  was  to  be  no 
peace.  The  Stamp  Act  was  repealed,  but  the  Declar 
atory  Act  remained,  and  the  Bishop  of  London  did 
not  stay  his  hand.  The  Puritan  pulpit  rang  with 
unceasing  alarm  until  its  voice  was  drowned  in  the 
clangor  of  arms.  Not  one  of  the  causes  which  had 
kept  the  royal  governors  in  contention  for  sixty  years 
was  settled  or  in  abeyance.  New  causes  were  con 
stantly  arising,  —  often  made  ;  and  it  was  the  evident 
determination  of  the  patriotic  party  that  they  should 
be  settled  only  in  one  way  —  with  substantial  independ 
ence  of  British  authority  in  all  matters  of  domestic 
policy.  To  these  causes  must  be  added  the  personal 
hostility,  which  had  become  deadly,  between  Bernard 
and  Hutchinson  on  one  side  and  James  Otis,  Jr.,  and 
Samuel  Adams  on  the  other. 

The  last-mentioned  causes  kept  the  contest  alive  in 
Massachusetts,  which  seemed  to  be  in  a  state  of  col 
lapse  in  other  colonies,  until  the  arrival  of  the  East 
India  Company's  teas  revived  colonial  interest  in  pub 
lic  affairs. 


68       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

In  the  early  stages  of  the  controversy,  international 
Samuel  as  we^  as  local,  James  Otis,  Jr.,  was  the 
Adams  leader :  but  after  a  while  his  li^ht  bejran  to 

the  great     n.  ,  ,    .      ^  ___, 

party  flicker,  and  in  1771  went  out  and  was  seen 
leader.  no  more<  Thacher,  less  to  be  pitied  than 
Otis,  had  found  an  early  grave.  Joseph  Hawley  and 
Samuel  Adams  remained ;  but  Hawley's  residence 
was  remote  from  the  scene  of  immediate  conflict,  and 
occasional  fits  of  despondency  rendered  untrustworthy 
for  sudden  exigencies  one  of  the  most  able  and  inter 
esting  but  little  known  patriots  of  the  Revolution. 
Samuel  Adams  remained,  and  in  all  local,  religious, 
political,  and  personal  relations  the  Revolution  in 
Massachusetts  found  in  him  its  greatest  leader.1 

If  his  colony  was  not  quite  ripe  for  armed  resist 
ance,  nor  all  of  them  strong  enough,  unaided,  to 
carry  through  the  contest  if  entered  upon  ;  or  if,  as 
was  the  judgment  of  Hawley,2  and  as  later  events 
seemed  to  indicate,  there  was  danger,  on  one  hand, 
that  the  conflict  would  be  precipitated  without  ade 
quate  preparation,  and  on  the  other,  that  the  people 
would  grow  weary  of  the  strife,  —  it  was  Samuel 
Adams  who  kept  alive  the  spirit  of  resistance,  and 
with  infallible  sagacity  piloted  the  bark  of  liberty 

1  "  Adams,  I  believe,  has  the  most  thorough  understanding-  of  lib 
erty  and  her  resources   in  the  temper  and  character  of   the  people 
though  not  in  the  law  and  constitution,  as  well  as  the  most  habitual, 
radical  love  of  it  of  any  of  them,  as  well  as  the  most  correct,  genteel, 
and  artful  pen.     He  is  a  man  of  refined  policy,  steadfast  integrity, 
exquisite  humanity,  genteel  erudition,  obliging,  engaging  manners, 
real  as  well  as  professed  piety,  and  a  universal  good  character,  unless 
it  should  be  admitted  that  he  is  too  attentive  to  the  public,  and  not 
enough  so  to  himself  and  his  family."  —  John  Adams  in  1765  :  Works, 
ii.  163. 

2  See  a  remarkable  letter  on  this  point,  written  from  Northamp 
ton,  February  22, 1775,  to  Thomas  Gushing,  in  Massachusetts  Histori 
cal  Collections,  xxxiv.  393. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      69 

through  these  dangerous  seas.  Apathy  might  prevail 
elsewhere,  but  in  Massachusetts  it  was  not  allowed  to 
prevail.  At  one  time  there  seemed  to  be  danger ; 
but  never  was  an  exigency  in  human  affairs  more 
clearly  discerned  nor  more  resolutely  met.  Never 
was  opposition  more  thoroughly  organized  nor  led 
with  more  consummate  skill.  To  this  work  Samuel 
Adams  gave  his  time  without  stint,  his  whole  heart, 
and  his  admirable  ability.  His  convictions  of  the 
justice  of  the  cause  were  founded  on  the  rock.  His 
faith  in  its  ultimate  triumph  was  as  the  faith  of  the 
martyrs.  He  was  the  last  of  the  Puritans,  with  the 
zeal  of  the  first  of  the  Puritans.1  He  hated  kings, 
but  most  of  all  popes  and  bishops.  The  crown  and 
the  crozier  were  alike  detested  symbols  of  tyranny. 
The  king  was  an  offense  far  away ;  Hutchinson  was 
an  offense  near  at  hand.  He  gathered,  united,  and 
led  the  patriotic  party  of  his  day.  Into  it  he  infused 
his  own  courage,  zeal,  and  constancy.  He  was  the 
unrivaled  politician  of  the  Revolution.  Without  him 
it  would  never  have  occurred  when  it  did  nor  as  it 
did.  In  this  work  Samuel  Adams  was  the  foremost 
and  greatest  man. 

But  the  Revolution  needed  a  statesman.     Begin 
ning   in   a   colony,   it   was   provincial.      It 
required  to  be  nationalized.     It  began  on  a 
party  basis  of  local  politics ;  it  needed  a  con-   the. 
stitutional  basis.     It  had  enlisted  the  sym 
pathies  and  resources  of  a  colony.     It  needed  the  sen 
timent  of  nationality  and  the  resources  of  a  continent. 
To  supply  these  needs  was  the  work  of  John  Adams. 

1  Adams  to  Morse  :  "  If  James  Otis  was  Martin  Luther,  Samuel 
Adams  was  John  Calvin  .  .  .  cool,  abstemious,  polished,  and  refined, 
though  more  inflexible,  uniform,  and  consistent." 


70       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

The  country  needed  —  and,  as  the  ill-starred  cam 
paigns  of  1776  showed,  it  was  one  of  its  sorest  needs 
—  one  who  could  enlist  the  sympathies  of  continental 
Europe  in  behalf  of  the  hard-pressed  colonists,  shield 
them  from  hostile  intervention,  and  secure  for  them 
material  assistance.  For  this  work,  110  less  by  the 
happy  constitution  of  his  mind  than  by  the  varied 
experiences  of  his  life,  of  all  men  Franklin  was  best 
fitted. 

Finally,  the  Kevolution  needed  a  leader  for  its 
armies  :  it  needed  Washington. 

Of  these  men,  all  required  for  the  initiation  and 
successful  issue  of  the  Revolution,  each  could  do  his 
own  work  supremely  well,  but  neither  that  of  the 
others.  In  completeness  and  grandeur  of  character 
Washington  stands  alone.  In  mass  of  intellect  Frank 
lin  is  accounted  first  and  John  Adams  second ;  but  if 
amount  and  variety  as  well  as  importance  of  service 
as  statesmen  be  taken  into  the  account,  Franklin  and 
Adams  might  change  places. 

Under  such  circumstances  of  colonial  history  John 
Adams  appeared  on  the  theatre  of  public  affairs. 
Before  we  can  rightly  estimate  his  career  we  must 
know  in  what  character  he  appeared.  Of  course  he 
was  not  a  Tory,  nor  was  he  a  Son  of  Liberty,  though 
elected  as  such.  He  neither  represented  nor  did  he 
ally  himself  to  any  merely  political  party.  He  put 
himself  at  the  head  of  that  great  movement  of  the 
race  in  America  towards  nationality,  visible  to  the  dis 
cerning,  as  we  have  seen,  everywhere  except  to  those 
who  were  in  it.  John  Adams  himself  was  only  vaguely 
conscious  of  it,  or  of  his  relations  to  it.  In  this  he 
was  like  the  monk  of  Erfurth  and  the  son  of  the 
brewer  of  Huntingdon.  But,  no  less  than  Luther  or 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       71 

Cromwell,  he  was  elected  to  lead  and  direct  the  move 
ment  of  an  age. 

At  the  age  of  twenty  he  said,  "  Soon  after  the 
Keformation  a  few  people  came  into  this  new  world 
for  conscience's  sake.  Perhaps  this  apparently  trivial 
incident  may  transfer  the  great  empire  of  Europe  into 
America.  It  looks  likely  to  me  ;  for  if  we  can  remove 
the  turbulent  Gallics,  our  people,  according  to  exact- 
est  computation,  will  in  another  century  become  more 
numerous  than  England  itself.  The  way  to  keep  us 
from  setting  up  for  ourselves  is  to  divide  us."  This 
was  in  1755,  four  years  before  Wolfe's  victory  on  the 
Plains  of  Abraham  and  five  years  before  James  Otis 
argued  against  the  Writs  of  Assistance. 

This  divination  of  nationality  in  the  future  empire 
of  America  was  not,  as  it  has  been  regarded,  the  work 
of  a  meditative  mind  turned  politician,  but  an  intui- 
ition  of  that  historic  imagination  already  spoken  of 
which  led  him  in  later  years  to  head  the  movement 
that  realized  the  prophetic  vision  of  his  youth.  No 
two  characters  in  our  revolutionary  period  are  more 
strongly  contrasted  than  Benjamin  Franklin  and  John 
Adams.  Natives  of  the  same  colony  and  in  some 
respects  representative  of  the  spirit  of  its  people,  in 
others  they  differed  as  widely  from  it  as  they  did  from 
each  other.  Franklin's  intellect  was  of  the  first  order, 
under  the  supreme  control  of  common  sense,  of  which 
he  was  the  incarnation.  This  determined  his  attitude 
to  the  Revolution.  He  was  opposed  to  it  so  far  as 
its  promoters  contemplated  armed  resistance  to  Great 
Britain.  Always  averse  to  war,  he  would  have 
patiently  waited  until  time  and  growth  should  sever 
the  colonies  from  the  mother  country.  He  did  not 
believe  the  colonies  were  strong  enough  to  fight  the 


72       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

king ;  but  when  Samuel  Adams  forced  the  hand  of 
the  minister  and  war  became  inevitable,  Franklin 
threw  his  great  influence  with  the  patriotic  party. 
As  matter  of  judgment,  he  was  right.  The  colonists 
were  not  strong  enough  to  withstand  even  the  feeble 
generals  of  the  king.  At  the  time  of  French  inter 
vention  the  game  of  war  had  gone  against  them,  and 
the  last  two  years  were  fought  largely  with  French 
troops  and  French  money.  Franklin's  judgment  was 
controlled  by  his  great  reason.  He  had  no  imagina 
tion.  This  is  where  he  differed  from  John  Adams. 
As  Adams  said  of  himself,  "  It  had  always  been  his 
destiny  to  mount  breaches  and  lead  the  forlorn  hope." 
He  had  faith  in  it.  He  had  seen  it  through  all  the 
ages  in  the  victorious  van,  and  his  imagination  was 
kindled  by  the  historic  review.  It  was  just  this  sub 
lime  intuition  of  nationality  which  distinguished  him 
among  his  contemporaries ;  and  this  united  with 
great  abilities  and  high  courage  made  him  the  first 
statesman  of  the  Revolution. 

The  value  of  this  gift  to  the  cause  which  John 
Adams  came  to  represent,  or  to  himself  personally, 
can  hardly  be  overestimated.  He  had  said  that  "  by 
looking  into  history  we  can  settle  in  our  minds  a  clear 
and  comprehensive  view  of  the  earth  at  its  creation ; 
of  its  various  changes  and  revolutions ;  of  the  growth 
of  several  kingdoms  and  empires ;  and  that  nature 
and  truth,  or  rather  truth  and  right,  are  invariably 
the  same  in  all  times  and  in  all  places."  This  intui 
tion  enabled  him  to  discern  in  race  tendencies,  situa 
tion,  and  growth  the  inevitable  result  of  the  approach 
ing  contest ;  and  when  the  hour  for  choice  came  he 
cast  his  fortunes  not  with  the  governmental  party  as 
might  have  been  expected  from  his  constitutional  and 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       73 

professional  conservatism,  but  with  those  ready  to 
battle  for  freedom  and  nationality.  And  this  faith 
in  the  prophetic  movements  of  events  left  no  room  for 
doubt  as  to  the  justice  of  the  cause  or  of  its  ultimate 
success.  And  so  he  never  quailed  in  the  face  of  dan 
ger,  never  was  disheartened  by  disaster,  and  his  every 
step  was  a  step  forward. 

Besides  the  faculty  by  which  John  Adams  divined 
the  end  and  every  intermediate  step  from  the  begin 
ning,  in  the  logical  order  of  events,  he  possessed 
another  of  scarcely  less  value  to  the  cause.  By  con 
stitution  of  mind  as  well  as  by  special  education  he 
was  constructive ;  and  in  this  order :  before  he  tore 
down,  he  planned  reconstruction.  Governments  were 
not  the  results  of  accident,  but  growths  from  germs 
maturing  as  the  oak  from  the  acorn  by  laws  of  race, 
situation,  and  the  facts  of  national  life.  His  recon 
struction,  therefore,  as  we  shall  see,  was  in  accordance 
with  these  laws.  Familiar  as  he  was  with  the  theo 
ries  of  government  from  the  republic  of  Plato  to  those 
of  his  own  times,  and  not  unwilling  to  adopt  what 
ever  would  incorporate  itself  into  that  system  which 
his  race  had  found  most  serviceable,  he  had  no  faith 
in  systems  which  lacked  the  sanction  of  proved  util 
ity.  His  work  was  new.  To  disrupt  an  empire  was 
not  new.  It  was  not  new  to  overthrow  governments. 
But  to  overturn  thirteen  royal  provinces,  and  without 
intervening  anarchy  to  set  up  in  their  stead  thirteen 
independent  governments  ;  to  loose  the  bands  of  an 
empire  and  reform  the  contiguous  parts  into  an 
united  whole  with  such  coherence  as  enabled  it  to 
maintain  itself  against  formidable  odds,  —  this  was 
something  new  in  history,  and  to  many  seemed  impos 
sible. 


74       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

Samuel  Adams  represented  the  Puritan  element  iii 
the  contest  in  Massachusetts.  To  him  the  Revolution 
was  the  last  in  a  series  of  events  reaching  back  through 
a  hundred  years  to  resist  the  imposition  of  the  Angli 
can  hierarchy  on  the  descendants  of  the  Puritans. 
Civil  and  religious  liberty  were  indissolubly  united  in 
his  affections,  but  his  inspiration  was  religion.  This 
fervor,  which  gave  him  power  among  his  own  people, 
detracted  from  his  influence  in  those  colonies  in  which 
the  people  regarded  the  Massachusetts  Puritans  as 
bigoted  fanatics. 

John  Adams  was  also  a  believer  in  religion,  but  he 
had  read  Shaftesbury,  Bolingbroke,1  and  Hume.  To 
him  religion  had  its  place,  —  the  first  place  in  natural 
order  in  every  well-regulated  mind.  But  he  was  no 
bigot  and  had  no  invincible  repugnance  to  any  form 
of  religious  belief. 

And  so  in  civil  government  he  believed  in  orderly, 
constitutional  subordination.  But  in  his  scheme  it 
was  a  subordination  to  laws,  not  men.  He  believed  in 
laws.  As  a  lawyer  he  admitted  the  supremacy  of  law ; 
but  as  a  statesman  he  recognized  the  distinction  be 
tween  those  rules  which  in  judicial  tribunals  determine 
the  rights  of  persons  and  those  general  maxims  appli 
cable  only  to  legislation.  In  construing  the  British 
Constitution  or  that  of  his  own  colony,  it  was  not  with 
him  a  question  of  original  theory,  but  of  present  fact. 
"  When  Massachusetten  sis  says  that  the  king's  domin 
ions  must  have  an  uncontrollable  power,  I  ask  whether 
they  have  such  a  power  or  not,"  is  his  way  of  reason 
ing.  What  by  growth,  development,  and  actual  oper- 

1  Adams  to  Jefferson  :  "  I  have  read  him  [Bolingbroke]  through 
more  than  fifty  years  ago,  and  more  than  five  times  in  my  life,  and 
once  within  five  years  past." —  Works,  x.  82. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      75 

ative  force  have  these  several  constitutions  come  to 
be  as  matter  of  fact  to-day  ?  Parliamentary  suprem 
acy  is  doubtless  a  constitutional  maxim  in  England, 
and  the  supremacy  of  the  Great  and  General  Court 
in  all  internal  affairs,  civil  as  well  as  ecclesiastical,  is 
and  always  has  been  a  constitutional  maxim  in  the 
province  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  And  in  both  cases 
the  validity  of  these  maxims  is  to  be  determined,  not 
by  the  declarations  or  admissions  of  past  ages,  but  by 
the  potentiality  of  a  present  declaration.  To  the  as 
sumed  right  of  Parliament  to  tax  the  colonies,  as  a 
corollary  of  parliamentary  omnipotence,  he  offered  no 
theory  of  constitutional  construction,  but  answered, 
"  Our  provincial  legislatures  are  the  only  supreme 
authorities  in  our  colonies."  Colonial  constitutions, 
like  the  British  Constitution,  he  assumed  were  flexi 
ble,  readily  adapting  themselves  to  changed  circum 
stances,  subject  to  growth  and  development,  and  the 
sole  measure  of  the  rights  of  the  people,  whenever  as 
matter  of  fact  they  had  come  to  rely  upon  them  as 
such.  Nor  did  he  fail  to  perceive  nor  shrink  from  the 
conclusion  that,  when  time  and  circumstances  brought 
on  the  inevitable  conflict,  force  would  be  the  final 
arbiter.  To  the  acceptance  of  this  doctrine  he  led  the 
national  mind,  as  represented  in  the  Declaration  of 
Rights  by  the  Congress  of  1774,  and  inspired  it  at  a 
later  date  with  the  audacity  to  defy  a  power  greater 
than  its  own. 

Such  seems  to  have  been  John  Adams's  theory  of  / 
the  provincial  constitutions,  though  nowhere  expressly 
formulated  in  words  and  perhaps  not  even  in  his  own 
mind  ;  but  everywhere  evinced  by  his  conduct,  not 
otherwise  consistent  or  intelligible.  He  frequently 
met  his  antagonists,  such  as  Hutchinson  and  Leonard, 


76       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

on  their  own  ground,  and  sometimes  overthrew  them 
by  skillful  fence ;  but  his  strength  and  his  power  were 
in  his  practical  recognition  of  the  American  constitu 
tions.  And  if,  as  has  been  suggested,  he  has  nowhere 
given  us  a  complete  statement  of  his  constitutional 
views  during  the  controversial  period,  but  left  them 
to  be  inferred,  as  in  the  Declaration  of  Rights,  he  is 
not  peculiar  in  this  respect.  Great  leaders,  especially 
if  like  John  Adams  they  are  men  of  action,  are  seldom 
the  formulators  of  their  own  principles  of  conduct, 
and  are  not  always  conscious  of  them.  They  are  men 
of  intuitions ;  and  their  chief  distinction  is  that  they 
are  the  first  to  feel  the  movement  of  the  age,  recog 
nize  its  significance,  and  give  it  beneficent  direction. 

Excepting  the  year  1770,  when  John  Adams  was  a 
member  of  the  General  Court,  he  had  no  official  rela 
tion  to  public  affairs.  In  the  vulgar  strife  between 
those  who  had  place  and  those  who  wanted  place  he 
felt  no  interest.  Poor,  ambitious,  conscious  of  great 
powers,  he  doubtless  desired  opportunities  for  their 
exercise.  He  saw  positions  of  power  and  emolument 
in  his  profession  engrossed  by  the  old  historic  families 
which  adhered  to  the  crown.  Into  this  charmed  cir 
cle  he  gazed,  he  tells  us,  not  without  envy.  But  he 
was  a  man  of  principle,  with  a  just  sense  of  honor,  and 
no  demagogue.  Poorly  adapted  for  the  game  of  poli 
tics,  and  lacking  the  faculty  which  moulds  the  senti 
ments  of  numbers  into  some  definite  form  of  action,  he 
made  a  poor  figure  as  a  politician.  By  the  constitu 
tion  of  his  mind,  by  taste  and  education,  he  was  fitted 
for  statesmanship  ;  and  when  that  career  was  open  to 
him,  he  entered  upon  it  with  such  success  that  he  soon 
became  recognized  as  the  most  commanding  statesman 
of  the  country. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       77 

The  Revolution  encountered  difficulties  apart  from 
the  evident  determination  of  the  ministry  to  sustain 
the  parliamentary  authority.  As  a  domestic  question, 
it  was  to  be  rescued  from  party  squabbles  and  placed 
on  such  constitutional  grounds  as  would  satisfy  the  * 
sound  judgment  of  those  on  whom  it  depended  for 
support,  as  well  as  the  fervid  patriotism  of  those  whose 
obstreperous  demonstrations  were  silenced  by  the  first 
call  to  less  noisy  duty.  It  also  required  to  be  nation 
alized  ;  for  unless  Massachusetts  was  to  stand  alone, 
and  standing  alone  to  fail,  it  was  essential  that  all  the 
colonies,  of  diverse  nationalities,  histories,  and  reli 
gions,  and  without  special  good-will  to  Massachusetts, 
should  nevertheless  unite  with  her  on  common  ground, 
make  her  cause  their  cause,  and  count  the  work  done 
only  when  a  free,  independent  empire  should  rise  out 
of  the  ruins  of  thirteen  royal  governments.  The  cause 
in  Massachusetts  did  not  stand  exactly  on  the  right 
basis.  It  was  too  local  and  personal.  It  was  too 
largely  a  question  between  the  ins  and  the  outs  to 
excite  interest  in  the  other  colonies,  and  in  the  eccle 
siastical  contention  they  had  no  sympathy  with  the 
Massachusetts  Puritans. 

To  one  of  less  abundant  resources  or  less  confidence 
in  them,  to  one  with  less  faith  in  the  future  empire 
of  America,  grounded  on  the  historical  development 
of  nationality  and  constitutional  government  by  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race,  the  magnitude  and  difficulties  would 
have  been  appalling.  But  John  Adams  brought  abil 
ity,  courage,  and  devotion  to  the  cause,  and  he  gained 
it.  When  he  entered  Congress  in  1774  he  found  the 
representatives  of  the  thirteen  colonies  brought  to-  ^ 
gether  chiefly  by  commercial  considerations,  having  no 
principle  of  cohesion  and  no  purpose  of  united  action, 


78       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

except  peaceful  resistance  to  parliamentary  taxa 
tion.1  But  before  he  left  Congress  in  1777,  and  more 
through  his  instrumentality  than  any  other,  these  col 
onies  had  become  independent  states,  some  with  con 
stitutions  for  which  he  constructed  the  plan,  and  united 
states,  with  the  germ  of  a  constitution  which  took 
shape  under  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in 
which  were  embraced  the  essential  features  of  the 
Constitution  of  Massachusetts,  the  work  of  his  own 
hands.  Such  an  opportunity  has  seldom  presented 
itself  to  a  statesman  in  any  age  or  country  ;  seldom 
has  such  opportunity  been  so  successfully  improved. 

The  period  between  1765  and  1775  was  prolific  of 
c  party  pamphlets,  in  which  the  parliamentary 

tionai         pretensions   and    colonial   rights   were   dis- 

questions. 


ity.  Massachusetts  contributed  her  full  share  of  this 
literature  to  the  common  cause,  and  added  a  series  of 
state  papers  comprising  messages  from  the  royal  gov 
ernors  and  answers  from  the  two  houses,  together 
with  resolutions  from  conventions  and  popular  assem 
blies,  probably  unsurpassed  in  volume  by  similar  pro 
ductions  emanating  from  any  other  colony.  Owing 
to  her  peculiar  situation  and  the  frequent  occasion 
she  gave  for  interference  in  her  affairs  by  the  king  or 
his  representatives,  few  constitutional  questions  of 
colonial  import  failed  of  exhaustive  discussion.  John 
Adams's  contribution  to  this  revolutionary  literature 
was  considerable  in  amount,  and  the  direction  he  gave 

1  In  the  Congress  of  1774,  "  after  the  first  flush  of  confidence  was 
over,  suspicions  and  jealousies  began  to  revive.  There  were  in  all  the 
colonies  many  wealthy  and  influential  men  who  had  joined,  indeed,  in 
protesting  against  the  usurpations  of  the  mother  country,  but  who 
were  greatly  disinclined  to  anything  like  a  decided  rupture."  —  Hil- 
dreth,  iii.  45. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       79 

to  it  was  followed  by  consequences  of  importance  to 
the  patriotic  party  in  Massachusetts,  and  later  to  the 
national  party  in  Congress. 

The  Stamp  Act  and  other  colonial  measures  which 
proceeded  from  the  British  ministry  became  party 
questions  on  both  sides  of  the  water,  and  were  dis 
cussed  in  Parliament  with  the  heat  which  character-, 
izes  party  declamation  at  all  times.  In  those  days 
as  well  as  in  later  days,  and  in  grave  histories,  these  ; 
declamatory  utterances  were  regarded  and  cited  as  j 
statesmanlike  determinations  of  constitutional  ques-  \ 
tions.  Nothing  can  be  more  misleading.  They  were 
mainly  party  cries  of  the  opposition,  similar  to  those 
with  which  we  became  familiar  in  the  congressional 
debates  which  preceded  the  late  Civil  War.  Chat 
ham's  splendid  eloquence  gave  currency  to  declara 
tions  which  had  no  foundation  in  constitutional  law, 
and  Camden,  from  whose  judicial  mind  more  caution 
might  have  been  expected,  conceded  and  not  long 
after  denied  the  American  position  ;  nor  was  either 
utterance  without  suspicion  of  political  or  personal 
motive.  Their  object  was  not  to  support  the  rights 
of  the  colonists,  but  to  overthrow  their  opponents. 
There  were  those  among  the  colonists  at  the  time  who 
held  these  partisan  declarations  at  their  just  estimate. 
John  Adams  said,  "  I  know  very  well  that  the  oppo 
sition  to  ministry  was  the  only  valid  ground  on  which 
the  friendship  for  America  that  was  professed  in 
England  rested."  Camden,  who  had  asserted  with 
the  colonists  that  taxation  and  representation  were 
inseparable,  later,  in  1767,  declared  that  his  doubts 
were  removed  by  the  declaration  of  Parliament  itself, 
and  that  its  authority  must  be  maintained.  But  this 
attitude  of  the  opposition  in  England,  though  not 


80       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

generally  understood  in  America,  was  of  great  advan 
tage  to  her  cause.  It  encouraged  the  colonists  in 
their  resistance  and  led  to  a  feeble  and  vacillating 
policy  in  the  ministry,  which  showed  itself  in  the  in 
efficient  conduct  of  the  war.1 

The  questions  of  constitutional  law  raised  by  the 
parliamentary  revenue  measures  affecting  the  colonies 
neither  at  the  time  nor  since  have  received  a  satis 
factory  solution.  Regarded  as  questions  of  law  de- 
terminable  in  courts  of  justice,  or  of  the  legislative 
power  under  the  British  Constitution,  in  which  aspect 
a  lawyer  would  at  first  be  likely  to  regard  them,  John 
Adams  might  well  have  hesitated  in  forming  an  opin 
ion.  Otis  at  the  outset  took  the  ground  that  Acts  of 
Parliament  were  not  binding  on  the  colonies ;  but  on 
fuller  consideration  of  the  subject,  in  his  work  on  the 
"  Rights  of  the  Colonies,"  he  conceded  the  claim  of 
parliamentary  supremacy.  This  was  Chatham's  doc 
trine  coupled  with  a  distinction  between  external  and 
internal  taxes ;  and  Franklin  had  incautiously  ad 
mitted  "that  an  adequate  representation  in  Parlia 
ment  would  probably  be  acceptable  to  the  colonists." 
John  Quincy  Adams  quotes  Jefferson's  statement, 
"  that  in  the  ground  which  he  took,  that  the  British 
Parliament  never  had  any  authority  over  the  colonies 
any  more  than  the  Danes  and  Saxons  of  his  own  age 
had  over  the  people  of  England,  he  never  could  get 
anybody  to  agree  with  him  but  Mr.  Wythe.  It  was 
too  absurd."  He  then  adds,  "  In  truth,  the  question 
of  right  as  between  Parliament  and  the  colonies  was 
one  of  those  upon  which  it  is  much  easier  to  say  who 
was  wrong  than  who  was  right.  The  pretension  that 
they  had  the  right  to  bind  the  colonies  in  all  cases 

1  See  Quarterly  Review,  January,  1884,  p.  7. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       81 

whatever,  and  that  which  denied  them  the  right  to 
bind  in  any  case  whatever,  were  the  two  extremes 
equally  unfounded ;  and  yet  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  draw  the  line  where  the  authority  of  Parliament 
commenced  and  where  it  closed."  1 

John  Adams  drew  the  line  against  the  authority  of 
Parliament  in  any  case  whatever  except  by  the  colo 
nial  consent;  and  this  position,  taken  in  the  earliest 
stages  of  the  controversy,  he  consistently  maintained 
to  the  end.  And  this  was  the  only  tenable  ground. 
Once  admit  the  supremacy  of  the  British  Constitution 
in  regulating  the  internal  affairs  of  the  colonies,  and 
there  was  no  ground  for  constitutional  resistance  to 
any  acts  affecting  them  as  distinguished  from  the 
people  within  the  three  kingdoms.  On  that  ground 
neither  Hutchinson  nor  Leonard  was  answered.2  It 
was  a  question  of  fact,  and  chiefly  as  to  time.  When 
the  colonial  charters  were  the  evidence  of  corporate 
existence  within  the  realm  for  extra-territorial  pur 
poses,  they  like  all  domestic  charters  were  subject  to 
alteration  or  repeal;  but  when  by  lapse  of  time, 
growth,  and  usage  they  had  become  governments 
proper,  regulating  their  own  internal  affairs,  they 
then  became  colonial  constitutions  which  excluded  all 
other  authority.  This  I  understand  the  position  of 
John  Adams  to  have  been.  Burke  recognized  the 

1  Life  and  Works,  viii.  282. 

2  General   political  maxims  never   have  had,  and  probably  never 
-will  have,  practical  force  either  in  courts  or  legislative  bodies.      To 
quote   the  maxim  that  taxation  and  representation  were  inseparable 
as  a  guide  to  legislation  or  as  a  ground  for  legal  resistance  to  a  law 
already  passed,  while  five  sixths  of  the  people  of  England,  whole 
counties,  large  towns,  and  many  of  the  Channel  Islands  were,  or  had 
been,  wholly  unrepresented  though   fully  taxed,  was   practically  as 
absurd  as  for  a  fugitive  slave  to  quote  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  or  the  preamble  to  the  Constitution  in  a  court  of  law. 


82       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

effect  of  usage  in  determining  constitutional  rights. 
"  Do  not  burden  them  with  taxes ;  you  were  not  used 
to  do  so  from  the  beginning.  Let  this  be  your  reason 
for  not  taxing."  Of  course  the  British  Parliament 
were  quite  at  liberty  to  take  an  entirely  different  view 
of  the  question,  as  they  did,  and  its  practical  solution 
depended  on  the  relative  strength  of  the  parties. 

John  Adams  was  brought  face  to  face  with  this 
question,  and  took  his  position  in  regard  to  it  before 
the  Governor  and  Council  in  1765,  on  the  petition  of 
the  town  of  Boston  for  reopening  the  courts,  which 
had  been  closed  for  the  want  of  stamps  required  by 
the  act.  A  few  days  before  he  had  written  in  his 
diary,  "  It  is  my  opinion  that  by  this  inactivity  we  dis 
cover  cowardice  and  too  much  respect  for  the  act. 
This  rest  appears  to  be,  by  implication  at  least,  an 
acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  Parliament  to  tax 
us.  And  if  this  authority  is  once  acknowledged  and 
established,  the  ruin  of  America  will  be  inevitable." 
This  was  on  the  18th  of  December.  On  the  20th  is  the 
following  :  "  I  grounded  my  argument  on  the  invalid 
ity  of  the  Stamp  Act,  it  not  being  in  any  sense  our 
act,  having  never  consented  to  it." 

On  the  validity  of  this  position  John  Adams  staked 
his  legal  reputation,  his  hopes,  his  fortunes,  and  the 
welfare  of  his  people. 

It  is  one  of  the  highest  claims  of  "Washington  to 
the  gratitude  of  mankind  that  he  carried  the  country 
through  a  long  war  in  strict  subordination  to  the  civil 
authority  ;  and  it  raises  our  respect  for  John  Adams 
that,  his  position  once  taken  on  the  fundamental  law 
of  his  colony,  he  maintained  it  with  courage  and  fidel 
ity,  without  swerving  from  principle  and  without  re 
course  to  the  arts  of  a  demagogue.  He  began  his 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      83 

career  as  a  statesman,  and  such  lie  remained  to  the 
end. 

After  the  death  of  Thacher  and  the  retirement  of 
James  Otis,  Jr.,  John  Adams  became  the  trusted  ad 
viser  of  the  patriot  leaders  on  all  legal  and  constitu 
tional  questions.  They  had  need  of  him,  for  the  party 
which  adhered  to  the  crown  was  led  by  very  able  men, 
who  carried  with  them  the  influence  of  wealth,  social 
position,  and  official  station.  A  cause  supported  by 
such  men  as  Hutchinson,  Sewall,  and  Leonard  could 
be  overthrown  only  by  powerful  assailants.  Better 
than  any  man  of  affairs  save  Hutchinson,  John  Adams 
understood  the  history,  legislation,  and  constitutional 
law  of  his  colony ;  and  probably  no  man  of  his  day, 
on  either  side  of  the  Atlantic,  had  more  carefully  con 
sidered  the  foundations  of  government,  or  the  forma 
tive  process  by  which  constitutions  adapt  themselves 
to  the  changing  circumstances  of  national  life.  He 
recognized  their  present  validity  only  so  far  as  they 
conformed  to  the  laws  of  national  growth ;  and  he  saw 
that  they  retained  their  identity  only  as  the  oak  is 
identical  with  the  acorn  from  which  it  sprung. 

In  the  legal  and  constitutional  controversies  which 
preceded  hostilities,  the  dialectical  force  was  by  no 
means  wholly  on  the  side  of  the  patriotic  party.  Hutch 
inson  was  a  formidable  antagonist,  and  more  than 
once  caused  anxiety  in  the  camp  of  the  Whigs.  And 
he  was  surpassed  by  Daniel  Leonard,  whose  weekly 
papers,  published  in  the  winter  of  1774-75  under  the 
signature  of  "  Massachusettensis,"  raised  this  anxiety 
to  positive  alarm.  These  celebrated  letters,  —  if  such 
can  be  called  celebrated  which  no  one  reads ;  a  classic 
lost  to  literature  amid  the  ruins  of  the  cause  which 
brought  it  forth,  —  written  with  evident  sincerity  of 


84       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

purpose  and  almost  pathetic  tenderness  of  feeling,  were 
likely  to  affect  the  popular  mind  very  powerfully  1  at 
a  time  when  the  colony  seemed  to  be  drifting  into  war. 
His  constitutional  argument  was  strong,  perhaps  un 
answerable  on  the  ground  on  which  he  put  it ;  and  his 
appeals  to  the  judgment,  good  sense,  and  right  feeling 
of  the  community  required  an  answer.  The  eyes  of 
the  Whigs  were  turned  to  John  Adams.  He  had  just 
returned  from  the  Congress  at  Philadelphia,  in  which, 
with  infinite  difficulty,  he  had  brought  the  delegates 
to  the  true  fighting  ground  of  the  Revolution.  With 
the  constitutional  argument  he  was  perfectly  familiar. 
The  answers  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  in  Jan 
uary  and  March,  1773,  to  Hutchinson's  messages,  were 
indebted  to  him  for  their  legal  astuteness,  which  was 
adopted  by  Samuel  Adams  and  used  with  the  skill 
which  characterizes  his  acknowledged  compositions. 
I  refer  to  these  controversial  papers  only  for  the  pur 
pose  of  showing  the  attitude  of  John  Adams  to  the 
main  question.  The  Tory  writers,  assuming  that  the 
colonists  were  British  subjects  within  the  realm,  and 
with  rights  and  duties  determinable  by  the  construc 
tion  ordinarily  given  to  the  British  Constitution  in 
practical  legislation,  had  little  difficulty  in  making 
plain  that  no  line  could  be  drawn  between  absolute 
parliamentary  supremacy  in  all  cases  whatever  and 
total  independence.  This  was  forcing  the  controversy 
to  an  issue  for  which  the  colonists  as  a  whole  were  not 
ripe,  as  John  Adams  had  sorrowfully  learned  in  the 
recent  Congress  at  Philadelphia.  As  a  Massachusetts 
issue  he  could  accept  it  with  prompt  decision;  but 

1  "  Did  not  our  Massachusettensis 

For  your  conviction  strain  his  senses  ?  " 

TBUMBULL'S  McFingal. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       85 

there  were  other  parties  to  be  conciliated,  and  he 
necessarily  wrote  with  a  view  to  the  state  of  feeling  in 
the  other  colonies  and  in  England  as  well,  where  the 
contest  was  regarded  with  intense  interest.  In  discuss 
ing  the  question  as  one  arising  on  the  construction  of 
the  British  Constitution,  he  showed  both  power  and 
learning  in  attack  as  well  as  in  defense  ;  but  he  was 
in  close  quarters  with  an  antagonist  worthy  of  his 
steel,  and  as  is  usual  in  such  cases  he  experienced  the 
varying  fortunes  of  war. 

But  on  his  own  ground  —  the  position  taken  before 
the  Governor  and  Council  in  1765,  on  the  petition 
for  opening  the  courts  ;  and  later,  in  the  fourth  article 
of  the  Declaration  of  Rights  by  the  Congress  at  Phila 
delphia —  he  was  on  firm,  constitutional  ground,  and 
historically  correct,  if  the  general  course  of  colonial 
history  rather  than  isolated  facts  is  regarded.  Some 
of  these  positions  have  been  already  referred  to ;  but 
as  he  is  about  to  pass  from  the  provincial  to  the  na 
tional  stage,  and  as  the  replies  to  "  Massachusettensis  " 
were  the  latest  and  most  authentic  expression  of  his 
views  on  the  colonial  constitution,  I  refer  to  them 
again. 

On  the  parliamentary  modification  of  the  charter 
contemporaneous  with  the  Boston  Port  Bill  he  says, 
"  America  will  never  allow  that  Parliament  has  any 
authority  to  alter  their  constitution.  She  is  wholly 
penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  necessity  of  resisting  it 
at  all  hazards.  And  she  would  resist  it  if  the  con 
stitution  of  Massachusetts  had  been  altered  as  much 
for  the  better  as  it  is  for  the  worse."  The  inviolability 
of  the  colonial  constitution,  and  that  constitution  as 
the  basis  and  measure  of  colonial  rights,  was  his  doc 
trine. 


86       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

This  bold  position  was  the  true  position.  No  sounder 
doctrine  ever  emanated  from  any  American  constitu 
tionalist  ;  and  when  John  Adams  assumed  it,  defended 
it,  and  brought  his  colony  to  stand  upon  it  and  fight 
the  war  upon  it,  he  rendered  her  a  service  of  states 
manship  such  as  has  never  been  surpassed.  It  changed 
the  nature  of  the  contest.  Acts  which  would  have 
been  rebellion  to  the  British  Constitution,  and  made 
all  participators  in  them  traitors,  were  no  longer  such, 
but  justifiable  and  patriotic  defense  of  their  own  con 
stitutional  liberty. 

The  Whigs  were  no  longer  fighting  against  Great 
Britain,  but  for  the  protection  of  their  own  rights. 
The  difference  was  immense,  and  so  were  the  conse 
quences.  This  new  feeling  nerved  the  arm  and  fired 
the  hearts  of  many  whom  the  idea  of  treason  inspired 
with  something  of  its  old  terror.  Every  act  of  min 
isterial  power  designed  to  coerce  the  colonists  was 
usurpation,  and  the  ministerial  troops  became  an  or 
ganized  mob  which  might  be  lawfully  resisted. 

Important  as  were  the  consequences  of  John 
Adams's  doctrine  of  the  inviolability  of  colonial  con 
stitutions  in  affording  a  good  fighting  position,  other 
and  even  more  important  consequences  flowed  from  it. 
If  the  people  of  the  several  colonies  were  living  under 
constitutional  governments  of  their  own,  and  not 
merely  royal  charters  revocable  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
imperial  government,  it  followed  that  they  had  a  right 
to  change  their  constitutions  at  will  and  mould  them 
to  their  changed  circumstances.  This  was  what  John 
Adams  incessantly  urged  in  the  Congress  of  1775,  and 
what  was  as  strenuously  resisted  by  a  large  party  not 
yet  ripe  for  independence,  which,  they  claimed,  and 
with  truth,  such  a  measure  would  promote  more  than 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       87 

any  other  conceivable.  Finally  Adams  prevailed  ;  and 
while  the  war  was  going  on,  several  of  the  colonies 
adopted  State  governments  on  models  furnished  by 
him,  and  notably  his  own  State,  the  constitution  of 
which  he  drafted,  and  from  which  was  adopted  the 
frame  of  government  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States.  Fifty  millions  of  people  to-day  live  under  a 
constitution  the  essential  features  of  which  are  after 
his  model.  Thirty-eight  States  now  have  constitutions 
in  no  essential  respect  differing  from  that  which  he 
drafted.  Thus  widely  is  his  influence  felt.  How  per 
manently,  God  only  knows.  But  until  constitutional 
government  is  overthrown  on  this  continent,  the  work 
of  the  GREAT  CONSTITUTIONALIST  will  endure. 

As  an  example  of  his  insight  and  grasp  of  constitu 
tional  principles  may  be  cited  his  action  in  respect  to 
the  impeachment  of  the  judges  who  accepted  salaries 
from  the  crown  instead  of  the  province,  in  contraven 
tion  of  the  provincial  constitution.  Peter  Oliver  was 
chief  justice.  His  brother,  the  stamp  distributor,  had 
been  compelled  to  renounce  his  office  under  the  Liberty 
Tree.  But  the  chief  justice  was  understood  to  be  of 
sterner  stuff,  and  probably  would  have  yielded  his 
life  sooner  than  his  office  at  the  dictation  of  the  mob. 
The  Whigs  —  and  most  of  all  the  Whig  lawyers  — 
were  in  doubt.  But  John  Adams  had  no  doubt.  The 
provincial  constitution,  he  claimed,  contained  the  germ 
of  every  power  which  had  been  developed  in  the  Brit 
ish  Constitution  in  the  centuries  of  its  growth  ;  and 
now  that  the  exigency  had  arisen  which  called  forth 
the  latent  resources  of  the  provincial  constitution, 
with  that  promptness,  decision,  and  sound  judgment 
which  always  characterized  his  action  when  there  was 
anything  to  call  forth  his  powers,  he  proposed  the 


88       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

impeachment  of  the  chief  justice  by  the  House  before 
the  Council.  After  his  professional  brethren  had  re 
covered  from  their  astonishment  at  the  audacity  of 
this  proposal,  and  come  more  fully  to  understand  the 
constitutional  basis  on  which  it  rested,  they  fell  in  with 
the  idea,  and  proceedings  were  inaugurated,  which 
were  brought  to  a  summary  end  by  the  war  and  the 
flight  of  Oliver  to  England  on  the  evacuation  of  Bos 
ton  by  the  king's  troops. 

When  John  Adams  was  transferred  from  a  provin 
cial  to  a  national  stage  as  one  of  the  delegates  from 
Massachusetts  to  the  Continental  Congress,  which  met 
at  Philadelphia  in  September,  1774,  he  became  asso 
ciated  with  a  body  of  very  able  men,  among  whom  he 
at  once  assumed  a  leading  position,  as  he  had  done  in 
his  own  colony.  He  was  by  considerable  the  ablest 
man  in  the  body,  and  in  his  line  of  constitutional 
statesmanship  by  far  the  best  equipped. 

But  his  position  was  one  of  great  difficulty.  It  is 
only  after  a  careful  study  of  the  proceedings  of  this 
Congress  and  the  subsequent  history  of  some  of  its 
members  that  we  come  at  its  real  character.  It  was 
a  Peace  Congress.1  Some  of  the  colonies  had  been 
compromised  by  their  attitude  in  respect  to  the  East 
India  Company's  teas  ;  and  the  extreme  measures  of 
the  British  government  in  closing  the  port  of  Boston 
and  altering  the  charter  of  the  contumacious  people 
of  Massachusetts  excited  the  apprehension  of  other 

1  That  such  was  its  character  is  evident  from  the  final  resolutions 
adopted :  — 

"We  have  for  the  present  only  resolved  to  pursue  the  following" 
peaceable  measures  :  1,  to  enter  into  a  non-importation,  non-consump 
tion,  and  non-exportation  agreement  or  association.  2  and  3,  to  address 
the  people  of  Great  Britain,  the  inhabitants  of  British  America,  and 
to  prepare  a  loyal  address  to  his  Majesty." 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      89 

colonies  as  to  the  ulterior  purposes  of  the  ministry. 
While  it  was  the  patriotic  desire  of  the  Congress  to 
express  their  sympathies  and  to  stand  by  the  people  of 
Boston  in  the  hour  of  their  sufferings,  it  was  hoped 
and  expected  that  some  conciliatory  course  would  be 
followed  which  would  allow  the  ministry  and  the  Mas 
sachusetts  people  to  extricate  themselves  from  their 
difficulties  without  recourse  to  war. 

John  Adams  had  no  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  the  peti 
tion  to  the  king,  nor  in  the  addresses  to  the  people 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  Canadas.  Matters  had  gone 
so  far  in  New  England  that  they  would  be  satisfied 
with  no  terms  short  of  the  withdrawal  of  the  royal 
troops,  the  reopening  the  port  of  Boston,  and  the  total 
repeal  of  all  measures  designed  to  reduce  them  to  obe 
dience.  At  the  same  time,  not  only  the  British  min 
istry,  but  the  British  people  also,  were  demanding  the 
complete  submission  of  the  Bostonians  or  the  inflic 
tion  of  condign  punishment.  So  far  as  Massachusetts 
was  concerned,  the  war  was  inevitable.  John  Adams 
saw  it  to  be  so,  and  prepared  himself  for  it. 

He  endeavored  to  prepare  the  Congress  for  it,  and 
not  without  valuable  results.  The  great  work  effected 
by  this  Congress  was  the  bringing  the  colonies  on  to 
common  ground  by  a  declaration  of  their  rights. 
Opinions  were  divided.  A  compromise  ensued,  and 
the  famous  fourth  article  was  the  result.  It  was 
drawn  by  John  Adams,  and  carried  mainly  by  his 
influence,  and  reads  as  follows  :  — 

"  That  the  foundation  of  English  liberty  and  of  all 
free  government  is  a  right  in  the  people  to  participate 
in  their  legislative  council ;  and  as  the  English  colo 
nists  are  not  represented,  and  from  their  local  and 
other  circumstances  cannot  be  properly  represented  in 


90       JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION 

the  British  Parliament,  they  are  entitled  to  a  free  and 
exclusive  power  of  legislation  in  their  several  provin 
cial  legislatures,  where  their  rights  of  representation 
can  alone  be  preserved  in  all  cases  of  taxation  and 
internal  polity,  subject  only  to  the  negative  of  their 
sovereign  in  such  manner  as  has  been  heretofore  used 
and  accustomed.  But  from  the  necessity  of  the  case 
and  a  regard  to  the  mutual  interest  of  both  countries 
we  cheerfully  consent  to  the  operation  of  such  acts 
of  the  British  Parliament  as  are  bona  fide  restrained 
to  the  regulation  of  our  external  commerce,  for  the 
purpose  of  securing  the  commercial  advantages  of  the 
whole  empire  to  the  mother  country  and  the  com 
mercial  benefits  of  its  respective  members,  excluding 
every  idea  of  taxation,  internal  or  external,  for  raising 
a  revenue  on  the  subjects  in  America  without  their 
consent." 

This  was  not  precisely  what  John  Adams  wanted, 
but  it  was  much.  When  this  declaration  went  forth, 
the  cause  of  Massachusetts,  in  whatever  it  might 
eventuate,  was  the  cause  of  the  colonies.  IT  WAS  NA 
TIONALIZED.  This  was  John  Adams's  greatest  feat  of 
statesmanship.  On  it  the  success  of  the  impending 
war  and  the  Declaration  of  Independence  rested.1 

Congress,  having  completed    its    work,  adjourned 

1  It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  John  Adams  regarded  the  declara 
tion  of  the  Congress  on  the  subject  of  parliamentary  power  over  the 
colonies  merely  as  the  reaffirmance  of  the  old  colonial  doctrine. 
"  Thus  it  appears,1'  he  says  in  Novanglus,  "  that  the  ancient  Massa- 
chusettensians  and  Virginians  had  precisely  the  same  sense  of  the  au 
thority  of  Parliament,  viz.,  that  it  had  none  at  all ;  and  the  same  sense 
of  the  necessity,  that  by  the  voluntary  act  of  the  colonies,  their  free, 
cheerful  consent,  it  should  be  allowed  the  power  of  regulating  trade  ; 
and  this  is  precisely  the  idea  of  the  late  Congress  at  Philadelphia, 
expressed  in  the  fourth  proposition  of  their  Bill  of  Rights."  —  Works, 
iv.  112. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION      91 

October  26,  1774.  This  body  has  been  much  com 
mended  for  its  moderation  and  ability.  Chatham 
eulogized  the  remarkable  series  of  addresses  it  sent 
forth  ;  but  neither  Samuel  Adams  nor  John  Adams 
nor  some  of  the  Virginians  were  satisfied  with  the 
results  of  the  Congress.  As  Bancroft  says,  "  Con 
gress  did  not  as  yet  desire  independence.  Had  that 
been  their  object,  they  would  have  strained  every 
nerve  to  increase  their  exports  and  fill  the  country 
with  the  manufactures  and  munitions  which  they 
required."  On  the  contrary,  they  agreed  upon  certain 
commercial  restrictions  upon  the  trade  of  the  mother 
country  and  those  colonies  which  should  side  with  her, 
hoping  thereby  to  coerce  the  king's  government,  by 
the  influence  of  the  manufacturing  and  trading  classes 
at  home,  to  desist  from  that  commercial  policy  which 
was  the  chief  ground  of  their  displeasure.  As  matter 
of  fact  the  Revolution  had  not  cast  off  its  commercial 
phase.  It  had,  however,  made  one  capital  declara 
tion  of  colonial  rights. 

The  value  of  this  stroke  of  statesmanship  became 
apparent  in  the  next  session  of  Congress  in  May, 
1775.  The  events  at  Lexington  and  Concord  had 
precipitated  the  contest  which  the  majority  of  the 
people  of  the  colonies  wished  to  avoid.  But  the  die 
was  cast,  and  one  of  the  delegates  at  least  had  mea 
sured  the  magnitude  of  the  struggle  that  had  begun, 
the  necessity  of  nationalizing  it,  and  of  bringing  to 
its  support  the  full  powers  and  resources  of  a  conti 
nental  government.  This  sagacity  and  statesmanship 
were  evinced  by  the  completeness  of  his  plans ;  and 
his  practical  force,  by  his  final  success  in  carrying 
them  into  operation  in  spite  of  innumerable  obstacles 
thrown  in  his  way.  "  We  ought,"  wrote  John 


92       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

Adams  to  General  Warren,  July  24,  "  to  have  had  in 
our  hands  a  month  ago  the  whole  legislative,  execu 
tive,  and  judicial  of  the  whole  continent,  and  have 
completely  modeled  a  constitution ;  to  have  raised  a 
naval  power,  and  opened  all  our  ports  wide."  When 
the  intercepted  letter  which  contained  the  above 
extract  was  published  at  Philadelphia,  it  "  displayed 
him  as  drawing  the  outlines  of  an  independent  state, 
the  great  bugbear  in  the  eyes  of  members  who  still 
cling  to  the  hope  that  the  last  resort  might  be  avoided." 
These  views  subjected  him  to  animadversion,  and 
even  cold  treatment,  to  the  extent  that  he  "  was 
avoided  in  the  streets  by  many  as  if  it  were  a  con 
tamination  to  speak  with  such  a  traitor." 

We  see  the  magnificence  of  his  plan  to  create  the 
empire  which  he  foresaw  in  his  youth.  We  see  the 
sagacity  of  the  measures  by  which  it  was  to  be  accom 
plished.  We  also  see,  what  those  who  opposed  him 
were  soon  to  see,  the  vast  resources,  the  untiring 
labors,  and  indomitable  courage  which  he  brought  to 
the  execution  of  these  plans.1 

•      His  plan  was  to  sever  at  once  every  political  tie 
which  bound  the  separate  colonies  to  Great  Britain  in 

1  "  Her  (Massachusetts)  government  passed  out  of  royal  hands 
before  the  Continental  Congress  had  been  in  session  a  month.  After  a 
partially  successful  appeal  for  the  advice  of  the  Continental  Congress, 
hers  was  the  first  government  to  be  placed  on  a  new  although  con 
fessedly  temporary  foundation  ;  and  from  one  of  her  leaders  went 
forth  to  the  other  colonies  one  of  the  strongest  single  lines  of  influ 
ence  toward  the  speedy  erection  of  commonwealth  governments. 
Massachusetts  endorsed  heartily,  even  if  for  the  time  incompletely, 
the  principal  feature  of  John  Adams's  plan  of  political  campaign  ; 
and  it  was  toward  the  full  realization  of  his  policy  in  the  complete 
establishment  of  commonwealth  governments  that  the  leaders  aimed 
consistently  during  the  few  years  of  the  distinctly  transitional 
period." — Harry  A.  Cushing's  Transition  from  Provincial  to  Com 
monwealth  Government,  13,  14. 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION       93 

their  royal  governments,  and  to  lay  the  basis  of  their 
independence  by  the  erection  of  state  governments  in 
their  stead ;  to  nationalize  these  state  governments  by 
confederation,  and  to  give  this  new  government  the  sub 
stance  as  well  as  the  form  of  nationality  by  adopting 
the  army  before  Boston  and  putting  it  under  national 
commanders ;  by  constructing  a  navy ;  by  issuing 
bills  of  credit ;  by  sending  embassadors  to  foreign 
nations ;  and  finally,  by  declaring  the  thirteen  colo 
nies  the  free,  independent  United  States  of  America. 

To  the  accomplishment  of  this  work  of  building  a 
nation,  no  one  of  all  the  great  men  with  whom  he  was 
associated  addressed  himself  with  a  clearer  compre 
hension  of  what  it  involved,  or  more  ably  or  more 
assiduously  devoted  himself  to  it,  than  John  Adams. 

This  was  his  great  work.  Before  its  substantial 
completion  I  do  not  think  he  could  have  been  spared. 
I  see  no  one  who  could  have  filled  his  place  between 
1774  and  1777.  But  after  that  period,  the  Revolu 
tion  in  successful  progress,  independence  declared, 
and  the  work  of  constitutional  reconstruction  well 
advanced,  he  might  have  retired  to  well -merited 
repose.  The  Congress  thought  otherwise ;  and  John 
Adams,  who  always  heeded  the  call  of  his  country, 
embarked  for  Europe  charged  with  diplomatic  duties. 
He  was  well  informed  in  matters  of  public  and  inter 
national  law,  but  was  not,  I  think,  specially  adapted 
for  a  diplomatic  career.  He  rendered  some  excellent 
service,  but  none  which  might  not  have  been  as  well 
performed  by  his  able  associates,  unless  we  may  still 
question  whether  their  zeal  for  the  preservation  of  the 
old  colonial  rights  to  the  fisheries  and  for  extending 
the  boundaries  of  the  country  to  their  furthest  limits 
was  equal  to  his  own.  He  certainly  had  always 


94       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

before  his  eyes  the  vision  of  his  youth  —  the  Empire 
of  America.  Not  even  in  a  later  day  was  Webster's 
view  wider,  more  national,  or  more  patriotic ;  nor  in 
the  largeness  and  liberality  of  his  commercial  policy 
has  he  ever  been  surpassed  by  any  of  our  public  men. 
Doubtless  there  is  a  tendency  to  over-estimation 
when  our  eyes  are  fixed  somewhat  exclusively  upon  a 
single  actor  in  a  cause  which  enlists  the  abilities  of 
other  eminent  men.  But  I  think  we  may  safely  add 
our  own  to  the  according  voices  of  those  patriots  who 
were  personally  cognizant  of  the  services  of  John 
Adams,  in  assigning  to  him  the  preeminent  place 
among  the  statesmen  of  the  Revolution.  He  did  not 
bring  to  the  Revolution  so  large  an  understanding  as 
Franklin's.  But  Franklin  lacked  some  things  essen 
tial  to  the  cause  which  John  Adams  possessed.  He 
lacked  youth.  At  the  critical  period  which  was  form 
ing  an  epoch  in  history,  he  was  an  old  man,  with  great 
interests  depending  on  the  existing  order  of  things, 
averse  to  extreme  measures,  especially  war,  and  with 
out  special  training  for  constitutional  questions.  Jay, 
Jefferson,  Wythe,  Henry,  Lee,  Gadsden  —  not  to 
mention  others  —  were  able  men,  and  rendered  great 
services.  But,  save  Franklin,  no  man  in  the  colonies 
was  so  largely  endowed  as  John  Adams.  His  under 
standing  was  extraordinary.  He  planned  well,  and  he 
executed  his  plans.  There  was  no  other  man  of  so 
much  weight  in  action  as  he.  There  were  wise  men 
—  some,  estimated  by  conventional  standards,  much 
wiser  than  John  Adams  ;  but  none  whose  judgments 
on  Revolutionary  affairs  have  proved  more  solid  or 
enduring.  There  were  younger  men  of  genius  and 
older  men  of  great  experience  in  affairs ;  but  John  \ 
Adams  was  just  at  that  period  of  life  when  genius  i 


JOHN  ADAMS  AND   THE  REVOLUTION      95 

becomes  chastened  by  experience  without  being  over-j 
powered  by  adversity. 

But  whatever  may  have  been  the  value  of  his  ser 
vices  when  compared  with  those  of  his  great  compa 
triots,  it  is  sufficient  title  to  lasting  honor  and  the 
unceasing  benedictions  of  his  countrymen  that  John 
Adams  had  a  conspicuous  place  among  those  who 
builded  a  great  nation,  made  it  free,  and  formed  gov 
ernments  for  it  which  seem  destined  to  endure  for 
ages  and  affect  the  political  condition  of  no  inconsid 
erable  part  of  the  human  race. 

While  living  John  Adams  had  no  strong  hold  on 
the  people,  and  at  one  time,  as  he  said,  an  immense 
unpopularity,  like  the  tower  of  Siloam,  fell  upon  him  ; 
and  now  that  he  is  dead,  even  the  remembrance  of  his 
great  services  seems  to  be  growing  indistinct.  He 
probably  lacked  many  of  those  qualities  which  attract 
popular  favor,  and  those  which  he  possessed,  such  as 
courage  and  steadfastness,  were  exhibited  on  no  theatre 
of  public  action,  but  in  the  secret  sessions  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress.  Passionate  eloquence  on  great 
themes  touches  the  heart  to  finer  issues ;  but  no  sylla 
ble  of  those  powerful  utterances  which,  as  Jefferson 
tells  us,  took  men  off  their  feet,  was  heard  beyond  the 
walls  of  Independence  Hall ;  and  even  the  glory  of 
the  transaction  which  made  the  old  hall  immortal 
rests  upon  the  hand  which  wrote,  not  upon  that  which 
achieved,  the  Great  Declaration.  This  ought  not  to 
be  altogether  so.  It  matters  little  to  the  stout  old 
patriot  with  what  measure  of  fame  he  descends  to 
remote  age,  for  he  will  never  wholly  die ;  but  to  us 
and  to  those  who  come  after  us  it  is  of  more  than 
passing  consequence  that  we  and  they  withhold  no 
tribute  of  just  praise  from  those  unpopular  men  who 


96       JOHN  ADAMS  AND  THE  REVOLUTION 

deserve  the  respectful  remembrance  of  their  country 
men. 

In  the  public  squares  of  the  city  have  been  erected 
statues  of  those  great  men,  save  John  Adams,  whose 
services  were  indispensable  to  the  initiation  and  suc 
cessful  issue  of  the  Revolution  —  Samuel  Adams, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  and  George  Washington  ;  but  our 
eyes  seek  in  vain  for  any  adequate  memorial  of  him 
whose  life,  public  and  private,  was  without  blemish, 
whose  essential  character  is  worthy  of  all  admiration, 
and  whose  services  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  so  long 
as  free,  united,  constitutional  government  holds  its 
just  place  in  the  estimation  of  the  people. 


THE 

AUTHENTICATION  OF   THE  DECLARA 
TION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

JULY  4,  1776 

REPRINTED  FROM  THE    PROCEEDINGS   OF    THE   MASSACHUSETTS 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  NOVEMBER,  1884 


THE 

AUTHENTICATION  OF  THE  DECLAEATION 


FEW  historical  events  which  have  occasioned  con 
troversy  are  referred  to  definite  time  and  place  by 
such  overwhelming  weight  of  authority,  personal  and 
documentary,  as  that  which  assigns  the  authentication 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  by  the  signatures 
of  the  members  of  Congress,  to  Independence  Hall  in 
Philadelphia,  July  4,  1776.  After  it  had  been  called 
in  question,  this  was  distinctly  affirmed  by  two  of  the 
most  eminent  of  the  persons  then  present,  one  of 
whom  was  the  author  of  the  Declaration,  and  the 
other  the  most  powerful  advocate  of  the  resolution  on 
which  it  was  based  ;  and  their  concurring  statements 
appear  to  be  corroborated  by  memoranda  claimed  to 
have  been  written  at  the  time,  as  well  as  by  the 
printed  official  Journal  of  the  Congress  of  which  both 
were  members ;  and  yet  it  is  more  than  probable  that 
both  eye-witnesses  were  mistaken  and  the  memoranda 
untrustworthy,  while  the  printed  Journal  is  demon- 
strably  misleading.  This  is  all  the  more  extraordi 
nary  since  the  error  relates  to  an  event  in  respect  to 
which  error  is  hardly  predicable.  It  is  not  a  question 
as  to  what  took  place  on  some  widely  extended  battle 
field  crowded  with  struggling  combatants,  but  as  to 
what  passed  directly  under  the  eyes  of  fifty  intelligent 
gentlemen  in  the  quiet  and  secret  session  of  the  Con 
tinental  Congress. 


100        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

The  question  is  this:  Was  the  draft  of  the  De 
claration  of  Independence,  which  after  various  amend 
ments  was  finally  agreed  to  on  the  afternoon  of  July 
4,  forthwith  engrossed  on  paper  and  thereupon  sub 
scribed  by  all  the  members  then  present  except  Dick 
inson  ?  This  is  affirmed  by  Adams  and  Jefferson, 
and  in  this  the  printed  Journal  seems  to  sustain  them. 
But  this,  Thomas  McKean,  himself  a  signer,  present 
on  the  4th,  and  voting  for  the  Declaration,  has  ex 
plicitly  denied ;  and  so  have  Force,1  Bancroft,2  and 
Winthrop.3  With  some  variation  in  phrase,  these 
writers  agree  with  Mr.  Webster,4  who  says  that  on 
the  4th  "  it  was  ordered  that  copies  be  sent  to  the 
several  States,  and  that  it  be  proclaimed  at  the  head 
of  the  army.  The  Declaration  thus  published  did  not 
bear  the  names  of  the  members,  for  as  yet  it  had  not 
been  signed  by  them.  It  was  authenticated,  like 
other  papers  of  the  Congress,  by  the  signatures  of  the 
president  and  secretary." 

Of  the  more  recent  writers,  Frothingham  5  and  Ran 
dall,6  unable  to  see  their  way  in  this  conflict  of  author 
ity,  have  left  the  matter  in  doubt ;  while  Dr.  Lossing, 
who  had  said  that  "  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  signed  by  John  Hancock,  the  President  of  Con 
gress,  only,  on  the  day  of  its  adoption,  and  thus  it 
went  forth  to  the  world,"  7  having  reexamined  the 

1  The  Declaration  of  Independence,  63. 

2  History  of  the  United  States,  viiL  475. 
z  Fourth  of  July  Oration,  1876,  28. 

4  Works,  L  129 ;  see  T.  F.  Bayard's  oration  in  Proceedings  on  Un- 
i^eiling  Monument  to  Ccesar  Rodney,  47,  and  Roberdeau  Buchanan's 
Life  of  McKean,  31. 

*  Rise  oftU  Republic,  545  n. 

*  Life  of  Jefferson.  i.  171  n. 

7  Field  Book  of  tfie  Revolution,  ii.  79. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       101 

question,  or  convinced  by  the  statements  of  Mrs. 
Nellie  Hess  Morris, 1  has  changed  his  opinion,  and 
now  affirms  that  it  was  engrossed  on  paper  and  signed 
on  the  4th  by  all  the  members  who  voted  for  it,  and 
subsequently  on  parchment,  and  again  signed  on  Au 
gust  2  in  the  form  well  known  in  facsimile.2 

The  first  to  challenge  the  commonly  received  opin 
ion  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was  en 
grossed  and  then  signed  by  the  members  of  Congress 
on  July  4  was  Thomas  McKean.  Shortly  after  Gov 
ernor  McKean's  death  in  1817,  John  Adams  sent  to 
Hezekiah  Niles  eight  letters  written  to  him  by  Mc 
Kean  between  June  8,  1812,  and  June  17,  1817. 
These  letters  were  published  in  Niles's  "  Weekly 
Register  "  for  July  12,  1817  (xii.  305  et  seq.).  In 
one  of  them,  dated  January  7,  1814,  which  is  too 
long  to  be  given  in  full,  but  which  may  be  found  ut 
supra,  and  also  in  the  "  Collections  of  the  Massa 
chusetts  Historical  Society "  (xliv.  505),  Governor 
McKean  says  :  — 

"  On  the  1st  of  July,  1776,  the  question  [on  the  Declara 
tion]  was  taken  in  committee  of  the  whole  of  Congress, 
when  Pennsylvania,  represented  by  seven  members  then 
present,  voted  against  it,  four  to  three.  Among  the  ma 
jority  were  Robert  Morris  and  John  Dickinson.  Delaware 
(having  only  two  present,  namely,  myself  and  Mr.  Read) 
was  divided.  All  the  other  States  voted  in  favor  of  it. 
The  report  was  delayed  until  the  4th  ;  and  in  the  mean 
time  I  sent  an  express  for  Caesar  Rodney  to  Dover,  in  the 
county  of  Kent  in  Delaware,  at  my  private  expense,  whom 
I  met  at  the  State  House  door  on  the  4th  of  July  in  his 
boots.  He  resided  eighty  miles  from  the  city,  and  just 

1  Potter's  American  Monthly,  iv.-v.  498. 
a  Ibid.  754. 


102        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

arrived  as  Congress  met.  The  question  was  taken.  Del 
aware  voted  in  favor  of  Independence.  Pennsylvania 
(there  being  only  five  members  present,  Messrs.  Dickinson 
and  Morris  absent)  voted  also  for  it.  Messrs.  Willing  and 
Humphries  were  against  it.  Thus  the  thirteen  States  were 
unanimous  in  favor  of  Independence.  Notwithstanding 
this,  in  the  printed  Public  Journal  of  Congress  for  1776 
(vol.  ii.)  it  appears  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
declared  on  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  by  the  gentlemen  whose 
names  are  there  inserted,  whereas  no  person  signed  it  on 
that  day  ;  and  among  the  names  there  inserted  one  gentle 
man,  namely,  George  Read,  Esq.,  was  not  in  favor  of  it ; 
and  seven  were  not  in  Congress  on  that  day,  namely, 
Messrs.  Morris,  Rush,  Clymer,  Smith,  Taylor,  and  Ross, 
all  of  Pennsylvania,  and  Mr.  Thornton,  of  New  Hamp 
shire  ;  nor  were  the  six  gentlemen  last  named  members  of 
Congress  on  the  4th  of  July.  The  five  for  Pennsylvania 
were  appointed  delegates  by  the  convention  of  that  State  on 
the  20th  July,  and  Thornton  took  his  seat  in  Congress  for 
the  first  time  on  the  4th  November  following  ;  when  the 
names  of  Henry  Wisner,  of  New  York,  and  Thomas  Mc- 
Kean,  of  Delaware,  are  not  printed  as  subscribers,  though 
both  were  present  in  Congress  on  the  4th  of  July  and  voted 
for  Independence.  .  .  .  After  the  4th  of  July  I  was  not  in 
Congress  for  several  months,  having  marched  with  a  regi 
ment  of  Associators,  as  Colonel,  to  support  General  Wash 
ington,  until  the  flying  camp  of  ten  thousand  men  was  com 
pleted.  When  the  Associators  were  discharged  I  returned 
to  Philadelphia,  took  my  seat  in  Congress,  and  signed  my 
name  to  the  Declaration  on  parchment." 

In  transmitting  this  letter  to  Mercy  Warren  for 
her  reading,  John  Adams  said  :  — 

"  I  send  you  a  curiosity.  Mr.  McKean  is  mistaken  in  a 
day  or  two.  The  final  vote  of  independence,  after  the  last 
debate,  was  passed  on  the  2d  or  3d  of  July,  and  the  De 
claration  prepared  and  signed  on  the  4th. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       103 

"  What  are  we  to  think  of  history,  when  in  less  than 
forty  years  such  diversities  appear  in  the  memories  of  liv 
ing  persons  who  were  witnesses  ? 

"  After  noting  what  you  please,  I  pray  you  to  return  the 
letter.  I  should  like  to  communicate  it  to  Gerry,  Paine, 
and  Jefferson,  to  stir  up  their  pure  minds."  1 

Governor  McKean's  recollection  was  certainly  at 
fault  in  one  or  two  particulars.  His  patriotic  and 
successful  endeavor  to  bring  Rodney  up  from  Dela 
ware  was  that  he  might  vote  on  the  main  question,  — 
the  Resolution  of  Independence,  which  passed  the  2d 
of  July.  It  is  doubtful,  also,  whether  he  was  correct 
in  saying  that  Wisner  of  New  York  voted  either  for 
the  Resolution  or  for  the  Declaration ;  for,  though  he 
may  have  been  in  favor  of  independence,  the  delegates 
from  that  State  were  not  authorized  so  to  vote  until 
July  9,  nor  was  their  authority  communicated  to  Con 
gress  before  July  15. 2  McKean  was  in  error  on  some 
collateral  points ;  but  was  John  Adams  right  and  Mc- 
Kean  wrong  on  the  main  question,  —  the  signing  of 
the  Declaration  on  the  4th  ?  It  is  premature  to  decide 
until  all  the  evidence  is  produced ;  but  there  is  a 
noticeable  letter  written  by  John  Adams  to  Samuel 
Chase  from  Philadelphia,  July  9,  in  which  he  says  : 
"  As  soon  as  an  American  seal  is  prepared,  I  conjec 
ture  the  Declaration  will  be  subscribed  by  all  the 
members,  which  will  give  you  the  opportunity  you 
wish  for  of  transmiting  your  name  among  the  vo 
taries  of  independence."  3  From  this  it  is  clear  that 
Chase,  whose  name  appears  on  the  printed  Journal 


1  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  ser.  5,  iv.  505. 

2  Journal  of  Congress,  ii.  265. 

3  Works,  ix.  421. 


104        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

of  the  4th  as  a  signer,  was  not  in  Philadelphia  on 
that  day,  nor  until  after  the  9th ;  and  a  question 
arises,  why  Chase,  on  his  return  to  Philadelphia, 
should  not  have  signed  that  Declaration  which  John 
Adams  says  he  and  others  signed  on  the  4th,  in 
stead  of  waiting  for  the  general  subscription,  which 
he  conjectured  would  take  place  after  the  prepa 
ration  of  an  American  seal.  The  following  entry  in 
the  Journal  shows  that  Carroll  was  not  in  Congress 
until  after  that  date,  though  his  name  is  entered  on 
the  same  Journal,  when  printed,  under  July  4,  as 
then  present  and  signing  the  Declaration  :  — 

July  18.  "  The  delegates  from  Maryland  laid  before 
Congress  the  credentials  of  a  new  appointment  made  by 
their  convention,  which  were  read  as  follows  :  — 

"  IN  CONVENTION,  ANNAPOLIS,  July  4,  1776. 
"  Resolved,  That  the  honorable  Matthew  Tilghman,  Esq.; 
and  Thomas  Johnson.,  Jan.,  William  Paca,  Samuel  Chase, 
Thomas  Stone,  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  and  Robert 
Alexander,  Esqrs.:  or  a  majority  of  them,  or  any  three  or 
more  of  them,  be  deputies  to  represent  this  colony  in  Con 
gress,  etc.  etc.  .  .  .  Extract  from  the  minutes :  G.  DUVALL, 
Clerk."  * 

1  Journal  of  Congress,  ii.  273.  The  addition  to  the  name  of 
Charles  Carroll,  in  the  above  resolve,  of  the  words  "of  Carrollton," 
shows  that  such  was  his  common  designation  before  he  signed  the 
Declaration  of  Independence.  Carroll,  though  he  had  a  large  pro 
perty  at  stake,  was  one  of  the  most  ardent  of  the  patriots,  and  as  im 
patient  as  any  of  his  associates  at  the  delay  of  his  colony  to  take  the 
ground  of  independence  ;  and  on  the  very  day  on  which  the  printed 
Journal  represents  him  as  at  Philadelphia  and  signing  the  Declara 
tion  he  was  at  Annapolis,  where  he  had  been  for  some  time  engaged 
in  the  finally  successful  effort  to  bring  the  recalcitrant  Assembly 
to  the  point  of  voting  the  resolve  quoted  in  the  text.  Due  consid 
eration  of  the  significance  of  the  foregoing  facts  begets  doubt  respect 
ing  the  story  which  has  been  widely  circulated  and  has  gained  some 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       105 

But  the  most  particular  and  apparently  the  most 
irrefragable  statement  in  favor  of  the  popular  belief 
that  the  Declaration  was  signed  on  the  4th  by  the 
members  then  present,  except  Dickinson,  is  found  in 
Jefferson's  memoranda,  and  also  in  his  letter  of  May 
12,  1819,  to  Samuel  Adams  Wells.1  And  first  the 
memoranda.  At  the  end  of  the  Declaration,  on  page 
21,  Jefferson  has  appended  the  following :  — 

"  The  Declaration,  thus  signed  on  the  4th  on  paper,  was 
engrossed  on  parchment  and  signed  again  on  the  2d  of 

August." 

And  in  brackets  :  — 

"  Some  erroneous  statements  of  the  proceedings  on  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  having  got  before  the  public 
in  latter  times,  Mr.  Samuel  A.  Wells  asked  explanations  of 
me,  which  are  given  in  my  letter  to  him  of  May  12,  '19, 
before  and  now  again  referred  to.  I  took  notes  in  my  place 
while  these  things  were  going  on,  and  at  their  close  wrote 
them  out  in  form  and  with  correctness  ;  and  from  one  to 
seven  of  the  two  preceding  sheets  are  the  originals  then 
written.'* 

credence.  It  is  to  the  effect  that  when  the  members  were  signing  the 
engrossed  copy  of  the  Declaration  on  August  2,  Hancock,  with  some 
implied  allusion  to  his  own  large  fortune  supposed  to  be  imperiled  by 
his  signing,  asked  Carroll,  who  also  was  rich,  "  if  he  intended  to  sign." 
Perhaps  there  was  nothing  in  the  character  of  Hancock  which  would 
have  prevented  his  asking  such  a  question  ;  but  certain  facts  stand  in 
the  way.  Carroll  took  his  seat  July  18.  The  next  day  Congress  voted 
that  the  Declaration,  when  engrossed,  should  be  signed  by  every  member 
of  that  body.  So  that  if  Carroll's  patriotic  efforts  at  Annapolis,  which 
secured  to  himself  and  his  delegation  the  right  to  vote,  left  any  doubt 
as  to  his  intention  in  that  regard,  the  above  vote  of  Congress  renders 
the  insolent  question  attributed  to  Hancock  altogether  improbable. 
The  same  may  be  said  as  to  the  alleged  addition  to  Carroll's  signature 
of  the  words  "  of  Carrollton  "  in  consequence  of  the  taunt  of  a  by 
stander  that  their  omission  might  save  him  his  estate. 
1  Jefferson's  Writings,  Boston  ed.,  1830,  i.  20,  94. 


106        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

In  the  margin  the  editor  informs  us  that  the  above 
note  is  on  a  slip  of  paper  pasted  in  at  the  end  of  the 
Declaration.  There  is  also,  he  tells  us,  sewed  into  the 
manuscript  a  slip  of  newspaper  containing  McKean's 
letter,  from  which  it  appears  that  Jefferson  intended 
to  make  an  issue  of  fact  with  Governor  McKean. 

Jefferson,  in  his  letter  to  Wells,  says :  — 

"  It  was  not  till  the  2d  of  July  that  the  Declaration  itself 
was  taken  up,  nor  till  the  4th  that  it  was  decided  ;  and  it 
was  signed  by  every  member  present  except  Mr.  Dickinson.1 
The  subsequent  signatures  of  members  who  were  not  then  pre 
sent,  and  some  of  them  not  yet  in  office,  is  easily  explained 
if  we  observe  who  they  were  ;  to  wit,  that  they  were  of  New 
York  and  Pennsylvania.  .  .  .  Why  the  signature  of  Thorn 
ton  of  New  Hampshire  was  permitted  so  late  as  the  4th 
of  November,  I  cannot  now  say." 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  when  Jefferson  speaks 
of  a  "  Declaration  thus  signed,"  he  must  have  had  be 
fore  him  one  that  bore  the  signatures  of  the  New  York 
and  Pennsylvania  delegates,  as  well  as  that  of  Thorn 
ton  of  New  Hampshire,  as  he  mentions  them. 

The  letter  to  Wells  bore  date  May  12,  1819.  On 
August  6, 1822,  more  than  three  years  later,  he  added 
the  following  postscript  to  a  copy  which  he  had  pre 
served  :  — 

"  Since  the  date  of  this  letter,  to  wit,  this  day,  August  6,  '22, 
I  have  received  the  new  publication  of  the  Secret  Journals  of 
Congress,  wherein  is  stated  a  resolution  of  July  19,  1776, 
that  the  Declaration  passed  on  the  4th  be  fairly  engrossed 
on  parchment,  and  when  engrossed  be  signed  by  every 

1  If  the  Declaration  was  signed  on  July  4,  it  is  fair  to  ask  why 
R.  R.  Livingston's  name  was  not  in  it ;  for  he  was  on  the  committee 
to  draft  it  and  he  is  represented  in  Trumbull's  picture  as  present  on 
its  presentation. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        107 

member  ;  and  another  of  August  2d  that,  being  engrossed 
and  compared  at  the  table,  it  was  signed  by  the  members." 

As  neither  the  resolution  of  July  19  nor  the  sign 
ing  on  parchment  of  August  2  appear  except  as  here 
after  given  in  his  memoranda  of  matters  he  "  took 
notes  of  in  his  place  while  these  things  were  going  on," 
and  as  he  was  certainly  in  his  place  August  2,  when 
he  signed  the  parchment  Declaration,  it  is  not  surpris 
ing  that  he  was  disturbed  when  they  came  to  his  no 
tice  nearly  fifty  years  later,  since  he  had  apparently 
forgotten  them. 

It  is  true  he  says,  "  The  Declaration  thus  signed  on 
the  4th,  on  paper,  was  engrossed  on  parchment  and 
signed  again  on  the  2d  August."  The  latter  date 
shows  that  the  entry  was  made  a  month  after  the  first 
alleged  signing.  "  The  Declaration  thus  signed,"  to 
which  he  refers  and  which  he  had  before  him,  con 
tained  the  signature  of  Thornton,  which  carries  the 
date  forward  as  late  as  November  4.  There  is  no  evi 
dence  of  the  existence  of  a  printed  copy  of  the  Decla 
ration,  with  the  signatures  of  the  members  attached, 
before  that  issued  under  a  resolution  of  Congress,  Jan 
uary  18, 1777 ;  and  the  imprint  of  the  official  journal 
which  contains  the  names  of  the  signers  is  of  the  same 
year.  From  these  facts  it  seems  to  follow  that  Mr. 
Jefferson's  memoranda  were  made  later  than  that 
date. 

We  now  proceed  to  a  more  careful  examination  of 
these  memoranda.  If  they  were  made  by  Jefferson  at 
the  close  of  each  day,  or  within  a  few  days  after  the 
transactions  they  record,  they  would  settle  the  ques 
tion  against  any  amount  of  opposing  testimony  of  less 
authoritative  character.  But  it  is  evident,  on  critical 
consideration,  that  such  of  these  memoranda  as  relate 


108       DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

to  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  on  the  4th  of  July 
were  made  up  with  the  printed  Public  Journal  before 
him ;  and  as  that  did  not  appear  until  the  next  year 
his  notes  lose  the  authority  of  contemporaneous  entries. 
Indeed,  he  tells  us  himself  that  the  statement  of  facts 
as  we  have  it  was  made  up  "  at  their  close." 

It  is  not  a  little  remarkable  that,  with  the  printed 
Journal  of  July  4,  which  bore  Thornton's  signature  of 
November  4,  before  him,  Jefferson  should  not  have 
asked  himself  how  that  name  should  be  found,  not 
upon  the  Declaration,  but  upon  the  Journal  of  that 
day.  When  Thornton  came  down  from  New  Hamp 
shire  in  November,  he  doubtless  signed  the  parchment 
Declaration  in  compliance  with  the  order  of  July  19, 
"  that  the  same,  when  engrossed,  be  signed  by  every 
member  of  Congress."  Though  coming  late,  Thorn 
ton  was  a  member  of  that  Congress.  In  order  to  make 
Jefferson's  assumption  effective,  the  clerk  must  then 
have  produced  the  paper  Declaration  and  requested 
Thornton  to  sign  that.  But  neither  of  those  signings 
would  put  Thornton's  name  on  the  Journal  of  the  4th. 
It  could  have  come  there  only  by  the  clerk's  false 
entry  that  Thornton  was  present  and  signed  on  the 
4th ;  for  the  entries  of  July  4,  July  19,  and  August 
2  are  in  the  handwriting  of  Charles  Thomson.  To 
state  this  supposition  is  to  contradict  it.  Nor  is  Jef 
ferson's  way  out  of  the  difficulty  more  clear  if  we  ac 
cept  Mr.  Randall's l  solution,  which  seems  to  be  adopted 
by  Dr.  Lossing,2  that  the  non-appearance  of  the  paper 
Declaration  to-day  is  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  pre 
sumption  that  it  was  destroyed  as  useless  when  the 
parchment  was  signed  on  August  2  ;  for  had  that  been 

1  Randall's  Jefferson,   i.  173. 

2  Potter's  American  Monthly,  iv.-v.  755. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       109 

the  case  Thornton's  name  would  not  have  appeared  on 
an  instrument  destroyed  three  months  before  he  en 
tered  Congress. 

The  real  state  of  the  case  begins  to  appear:  the 
printed  Public  Journal  for  July  4,  1776,  varies  from 
the  original.  There  are  three  publications  which  pur 
port  to  give  the  proceedings  of  the  Old  Congress,  in 
whole  or  in  part.  The  first  is  entitled  "  Journals  of 
Congress.  Containing  the  Proceedings  in  the  year 
1776."  The  proceedings  for  July,  1776,  were  not 
officially  published  until  more  than  six  months  after 
their  occurrence.  The  last  entry  in  the  Journal  for 
that  year  is  December  31 ;  and  the  preparation  of  the 
copy,  with  a  full  index,  would  probably  delay  its  pub 
lication  until  the  spring  of  1777.  For  more  than 
forty  years  this  was  the  only  Journal  known  to  the 
public.  It  was  that  which  Adams  and  Jefferson  had 
before  them  when  they  so  explicitly  stated  that  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  signed  by  the  mem 
bers  present  on  July  4.  This  printed  Journal  appears 
to  sustain  them  in  that  statement. 

The  second  of  these  Journals  is  entitled  the  "  Secret 
Journals  of  the  Acts  and  Proceedings  of  Congress," 
and  was  first  published  in  1821,  in  four  volumes, 
agreeably  to  Congressional  Resolves.  These  volumes 
contain  those  records  of  domestic  and  foreign  affairs 
which  Congress  thought  it  wise  to  keep  from  the 
public  eye,  and  are  found  in  manuscript  volumes 
distinct  from  those  which  contain  the  Public  Jour 
nals. 

The  wisdom,  secrecy,  or  timidity  of  Congress  is  clear 
from  the  fact  that  the  three  resolutions,  one  of  them 
relating  to  independence,  which  Richard  Henry  Lee 
moved  on  June  7, 1776,  are  referred  to  in  the  Journal 


110        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

of  that  day  only  as  "  certain  resolutions  respecting 
independency ;  "  nor  were  they  ever  extended  on  the 
records,  and  only  became  known  in  the  manner  pre 
sently  to  be  explained.  On  the  10th  one  of  these 
resolutions  was  set  out  by  way  of  recital. 

The  third  of  these  Journals  is  to  be  found  in  Force's 
"American  Archives,"  and  is  not  the  Journal  kept 
by  Charles  Thomson,  the  secretary  of  the  Old  Con 
gress,  but  an  account  of  the  proceedings  of  Congress 
made  up  from  the  Journals  above  described,  and  the 
minutes,  documents,  and  letters  preserved  in  files  by 
the  secretary.  It  lacks  the  authority  which  appertains 
to  a  journal  extended  by  a  sworn  secretary  of  the  body 
whose  proceedings  it  records ;  but,  nevertheless,  it  is 
doubtless  the  most  authentic  account  of  the  transac 
tions  of  Congress  which  we  possess.  From  the  files 
Force  printed  the  original  paper  which  contained 
Lee's  famous  resolutions.1 

With  this  account  of  these  several  Journals  I  now 
propose  to  bring  them  together,  so  far  as  relates  to 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  It  will  be  under 
stood  that  in  speaking  of  the  Public  Journals  of  Con 
gress  I  refer  in  all  cases,  unless  otherwise  specified, 
to  the  printed  Journals. 

Proceedings  according  to  the  Public  Journal. 

July  4,  1776.  Agreeable  to  the  order  of  the  day,  the 
Congress  resolved  itself  into  a  committee  of  the  whole,  to 
take  into  their  farther  consideration  the  declaration  ;  and 
after  some  time  the  president  resumed  the  chair,  and  Mr. 
Harrison  reported  that  the  committee  have  agreed  to  a 
declaration,  which  they  desired  him  to  report. 

The  declaration  being  read  was  agreed  to,  as  follows  :  — 

1  See  facsimile  in  American  Archives,  4th  ser.  vi.  1700. 


OF  THE          '  F  ~ 

UNIVERSITY 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        III 

A  DECLARATION  by  the  Representatives   of  the  UNITED 
STATES  of  AMERICA  in  Congress  assembled. 

[Here  follows  the  Declaration  in  the  form  we  have  it.~\ 

The  foregoing  declaration  was,  by  order  of  Congress,  en 
grossed,  and  signed  by  the  following  members  :  — 


John  Hancock. 

New  Hampshire. 
Josiah  Bartlett. 
William  Whipple. 
Matthew  Thornton. 

Massach  usetts-Bay . 
Samuel  Adams. 
John  Adams. 
Robert  Treat  Paine. 
Elbridge  Gerry. 

Rhode  Island. 
Stephen  Hopkins. 
William  Ellery. 

Connecticut. 
Roger  Sherman. 
Samuel  Huntington. 
William  Williams. 
Oliver  Wolcott. 

New  York. 
William  Floyd. 
Philip  Livingston. 
Francis  Lewis. 
Lewis  Morris. 

New  Jersey. 
Richard  Stockton. 
John  Witherspoon. 
Francis  Hopkinson. 
John  Hart. 
Abraham  Clark. 


Pennsylvania. 
Robert  Morris. 
Benjamin  Rush. 
Benjamin  Franklin. 
John  Morton. 
George  Clymer. 
James  Smith. 
George  Taylor. 
James  Wilson. 
George  Ross. 

Delaware. 
Caesar  Rodney. 
George  Read. 

Maryland. 
Samuel  Chase. 
William  Paca. 
Thomas  Stone. 
Charles  Carroll,  of  Carrollton. 

Virginia. 
George  Wythe. 
Richard  Henry  Lee. 
Thomas  Jefferson. 
Benjamin  Harrison. 
Thomas  Nelson,  Jun. 
Francis  Lightfoot  Lee. 
Carter  Braxton. 

North  Carolina. 
William  Hooper. 
Joseph  Hewes. 
John  Penn. 


112        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

South  Carolina.  Georgia. 

Edward  Rutledge.  Button  Gwinnett. 

Thomas  Heyward,  Jun.  Lyman  Hall. 

Thomas  Lynch,  Jan.  George  Walton. 
Arthur  Middleton. 

Resolved,  That  copies  of  the  declaration  be  sent  to  the 
several  assemblies,  conventions  and  committees,  or  councils 
of  safety,  and  to  the  several  commanding  officers  of  the 
continental  troops ;  that  it  be  proclaimed  in  each  of  the 
United  States,  and  at  the  head  of  the  army. 

In  tho  Secret  Journal  there  is  no  entry  under  the 
4th  of  July,  1776. 

Proceedings  in  Congress  kth  July,  1776,   as  given  in 
Force's  "Archives."  1 

Agreeable  to  the  Order  of  the  Day,  the  Congress  re 
solved  itself  into  a  Committee  of  the  Whole,  to  take  into 
their  further  consideration  the  Declaration  ;  and  after  some 
time  the  President  resumed  the  chair,  and  Mr.  Harrison 
reported  that  the  Committee  have  agreed  to  a  Declaration, 
which  they  desired  him  to  report. 

The  Declaration  being  read,  was  agreed  to,  as  follows : — 

[Here  follows  the  Declaration,  as  in  the  Public  Journal, 
but  without  any  signatures.^ 

Ordered,  That  the  Declaration  be  authenticated  and 
printed.  That  the  committee  appointed  to  prepare  the 
Declaration  superintend  and  correct  the  press.  Resolved, 
That  copies  of  the  Declaration  be  sent  to  the  several  assem 
blies  [etc.,  as  in  the  Public  Journal]. 

The  Secret  Journal. 

July  19,  1776.     Resolved,  That  the  Declaration  passed 
on  the  4th  be  fairly  engrossed  on  parchment,  with  the  title 
and  style  of  "  THE  UNANIMOUS  DECLARATION  of  the  THIB- 
1  4th  ser.  vi.  1729. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        113 

TEEN  UNITED  STATES  of  AMERICA  ; "  and  that  the  same, 
when  engrossed,  be  signed  by  every  member  of  Congress.1 

The  Public  Journal  has  no  entry  on  this  day  re 
specting  the  Declaration;  but  the  Proceedings  in 
Force's  "  Archives  "  contain  the  resolve  as  above.2 

The  Secret  Journal. 

August  2, 1776.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  being 
engrossed,  and  compared  at  the  table,  was  signed  by  the 
members.3 

The  same  is  found  in  Force's  "  Archives,"  4  but  not 
in  the  Public  Journal. 

The  Public  Journal. 

January  18,  1777.  Ordered,  That  an  authenticated 
copy  of  the  declaration  of  independency,  with  the  names  of 
the  members  of  Congress  subscribing  the  same,  be  sent  to 
each  of  the  United  States,  and  they  be  desired  to  have  the 
same  put  upon  record.6 

Assuming  that  the  entry  in  the  Public  Journal  of 
July  4  is  genuine,  the  above  order  is  superfluous,  since 
as  such  it  merely  repeats  the  former  order,  and 
couples  with  it  the  expression  of  a  desire  that  the  sev 
eral  States  would  record  it.  The  operative  clause  is 
to  print  the  Declaration  with  the  names  of  the  mem 
bers  signing  it.  This  was  accordingly  done,  and  for 
the  first  time.  From  the  copy  thus  printed  was  made 
up  the  Journal  of  the  4th  July,  as  printed  more  than 
six  months  antecedent.6 

1  Secret  Journal,  Domestic  Affairs,  ii.  48. 

2  Force's  Archives,  5th  ser.  i.  1584. 

3  Secret  Journal,  Domestic  Affairs,  ii.  49. 

4  Force's  Archives,  5th  ser.  i.  1597. 

5  Journals  of  Congress,  iii.  28. 

6  See  New  Hampshire  Historical  Society  Collections,   ii.   139,  for 


114        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

With  these  extracts  from  the  Journals  and  Pro 
ceedings  before  us,  and  assisted  by  certain  well-known 
and  indisputable  facts,  it  ought  not  to  be  difficult  to 
discover  the  truth  respecting  the  apparent  signing  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  on  the  4th  of  July, 
1776. 

It  will  be  observed  that  the  statements  of  these 
Journals  are  inconsistent,  if  not  contradictory.  The 
Public  Journal  says,  under  date  of  July  4 :  — 

"  The  foregoing  declaration  was,  by  order  of  Congress, 
engrossed,  and  signed  by  the  following  members." 

In  the  Proceedings  the  corresponding  entry  is  as 
follows :  — 

"  Ordered,  That  the  Declaration  be  authenticated  and 
printed.  That  the  committee  appointed  to  prepare  the 
Declaration  superintend  and  correct  the  press." 

"  Resolved,  That  copies  of  the  Declaration  be  sent  to  the 
several  assemblies,"  etc. 

Now,  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that  these  inconsistent 
orders  could  have  passed  at  the  same  time  and  in  rela 
tion  to  the  same  subject-matter.  One  or  the  other  of 
them  must  be  incorrect.  It  is  noticeable  that  what 
seems  to  be  an  order  in  the  Public  Journal  is  only  a 
narrative  of  an  alleged  fact,  namely,  that  "  the  fore 
going  declaration  was,  by  order  of  Congress,  engrossed 
and  signed  by  the  following  members."  It  is  perti 
nent  to  ask,  By  what  order,  and  where  is  it  recorded  ? 
The  Journal  contains  no  such  order,  nor  do  the  files. 
Nothing  exists  independently  of  the  above  recital  to 
show  that  any  such  order  was  ever  passed ;  nor  is 
the  narrative  a  correct  recital  of  facts.  That  is,  it 

Hancock's  letter,  January  31,  1777,  sending  a  copy  to  New  Hamp 
shire. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       115 

states  what  is  known  to  be  untrue,  —  in  part,  from 
subsequent  entries  in  the  Journal  itself.  The  New 
York  members,  whose  names  are  recorded  as  present 
and  signing  the  Declaration  on  July  4,  were  not 
authorized  to  sign  until  the  9th,  nor  was  that  author 
ity  laid  before  Congress  until  the  15th.1  Of  course 
they  did  not  sign  before  that  date.  As  we  have  al 
ready  seen,  Chase  was  not  present  on  the  4th,  nor  was 
Carrol],  who  did  not  take  his  seat  until  the  18th.2 
Rush,  Clymer,  Taylor,  and  Ross,  of  Pennsylvania, 
whose  names  are  recorded  as  signing  on  the  4th,  were 
not  chosen  delegates  until  July  20 ; 3  nor  did  Thorn 
ton  appear  in  Congress  until  November  4.4  So  far 
as  these  delegates  are  concerned,  the  Public  Journal, 
which  represents  them  as  present  in  Congress  on  the 
4th  of  July  and  signing  the  Declaration,  is  clearly 
spurious. 

In  the  next  place,  the  record  of  the  Public  Journal 
as  printed  is  at  variance  with  known  facts.  If,  as  it 
asserts,  the  Declaration  was  signed  on  the  4th,  it 
should  be  found  in  the  files  of  that  day ;  but  search 
has  repeatedly  been  made  for  it  without  success,  nor 
has  it  ever  been  seen  or  heard  of.  It  may  have  been 
lost ;  but  there  are  facts  making  it  by  far  more  pro 
bable  that  it  never  existed.  If  the  signatures  of 
the  delegates  were  affixed,  in  whole  or  in  part,  to  the 
Declaration  on  the  4th,  they  formed  an  important 
part  of  the  instrument,  since  they  constituted  its  sole 
authorized  and  required  authentication,  when  it  was 

1  See  Sparks'  sLifeofGouverneur  Morris,  i.  109,  110;  Life  of  Sparks, 
i.  524,  525 ;  as  to  the  Connecticut  members,  see  Massachusetts  Histori 
cal  Society  Proceedings,  ser.  2,  iii.  373  et  seq. 

2  Journals  of  Congress,  ii.  273. 

3  Ibid.  277. 

4  Ibid.  441. 


116        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

printed  and  sent  to  the  several  assemblies  and  read  at 
the  head  of  the  army.  We  have  the  copies  which 
were  so  sent  and  read.  But  these  copies  contain  only 
the  signatures  of  John  Hancock,  as  president,  and 
Charles  Thomson,  as  secretary,  of  the  Congress,  who 
claim  to  have  signed  it  in  behalf  and  by  order  of  that 
body.1  So  that,  if  the  order  of  Congress,  as  is 
asserted  by  the  Public  Journal,  was  that  the  Declara 
tion  should  be  signed  by  the  members,  and  so  sent 
forth,  then  Hancock  and  Thomson  must  have  caused 
it  to  be  printed  without  these  signatures,  and  falsely 
claimed  that  their  own  were  added  by  authority.  For 
not  only  cannot  this  original  Declaration,  which  Jef 
ferson  says  was  signed  by  the  delegates  on  the  4th, 
be  found,  but  not  even  one  of  the  printed  copies 
which  were  ordered  by  Congress.  This  fact  points  to 
an  inevitable  conclusion.  Such  a  paper  never  existed 
save  on  the  false  Journal  as  printed  by  Congress. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  proceedings  and  orders,  as 
set  forth  in  the  "  American  Archives,"  strictly  con 
form  to  congressional  precedents.  All  its  proclama 
tions  and  similar  public  documents  went  forth  under 
the  authentication  of  the  president  and  secretary, 
unless  otherwise  ordered,  as  was  the  case  with  the 
Address  to  the  King  and  other  like  addresses  of  the 
Congress  of  1774.  Any  other  method,  save  by  express 
vote,  would  have  been  illegal.  Since  the  Declaration, 
though  of  the  nature  of  a  legislative  act,  was  in  some 
respects  out  of  the  ordinary  course,  the  president 
and  secretary  might  well  seek  instruction.  Congress 
forthwith  gave  them  directions  to  authenticate  it  and 
print  it  under  direction  of  the  committee  that  drafted 

1  The  same  authentication  is  given  in  the  Annual  Register,  1776, 
161. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       117 

it,  and  then  send  it  to  the  assemblies  and  to  the  army. 
This  was  done  immediately.  Lossing  has  stated  that 
the  Declaration  was  agreed  to  about  two  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.  It  was  printed  during  that  afternoon 
and  evening,  and  the  next  day  was  sent  forth  to  the 
world.1  Copies  of  the  Declaration  are  not  rare. 
There  is  one  in  the  library  of  the  Historical  Society ; 
and  a  copy  was  printed  at  Salem,  doubtless  within  a 
few  days  after  the  receipt  of  that  distributed  by  order 
of  Congress.  Its  authentication  is  as  follows  :  — 

Signed  by  order  and  in  behalf  of  the  Congress, 

JOHN  HANCOCK,  President. 

Attest,  CHARLES  THOMSON,  Secretary. 

The  ordinary  authentication  was  by  the  signatures  of 
the  president  and  secretary,  followed  by  their  official 
title ;  and  the  peculiarity  of  the  authentication  of  the 
Declaration  in  the  use  of  the  uncommon  words, 
"  Signed  by  order  and  in  behalf  of  the  Congress," 
shows  that  it  was  so  authenticated  by  the  express  vote 
of  that  body. 

In  a  word,  the  proceedings  of  Congress  with  respect 
to  the  Declaration,  as  contained  in  the  "American 
Archives,"  and  given  above,  conform  to  and  account 
for  all  known  facts;  while  the  record  of  the  same 
transaction,  as  found  in  the  Public  Journal,  is  contra 
dicted  by  other  entries  in  the  same  Journal,  and  is  at 
variance  with  all  the  external  circumstances  attending 
and  following  the  transaction. 

But  the  case  does  not  rest  wholly  upon  the  reasons 
given  above.  Thus  far  in  this  analysis  I  have  con 
fined  myself  to  the  printed  Journals  of  Congress  and 

1  See  note  in  Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic,  544,  from  which 
»ne  might  infer  that  the  Declaration  was  published  on  the  4th. 


118        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

to  such  facts  as  are  of  public  notoriety ;  and  if  the 
case  were  allowed  to  rest  here,  I  trust  it  has  been 
made  to  appear  that  the  Public  Journal  of  July  4, 
reciting  that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
signed  by  the  members  of  Congress  on  that  day,  is 
erroneous.  But  the  error  requires  explanation  as 
well  as  demonstration.  The  error  is  in  the  printed 
Journal  which  does  not  conform  to  the  original  manu 
scripts.  Of  these  there  are  three  which  are  more 
fully  described  in  the  subjoined  note.1  Two  of  them 

1  For  the  interesting  facts  given  above  I  am  indebted  to  the  cour 
tesy  of  S.  M.  Hamilton,  Esq.,  of  the  State  Department,  Washington, 
who,  in  the  absence  of  Theodore  F.  Dwight,  Esq.,  to  whom  I  had 
addressed  some  inquiries,  had  written  the  following  letter  and  its 
enclosures. 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE,  WASHINGTON,  November  5,  1884. 

DEAR  SIR,  — ...  I  fail  to  discover  any  printed  half -sheet  of 
paper,  with  the  names  of  the  members  afterwards  in  the  printed 
Journals  stitched  in.  I  have  found,  however,  a  printed  copy  of  the 
Declaration  inserted  in  one  of  the  manuscript  Journals  covering  the 
period  in  question,  and  have,  by  the  enclosures,  endeavored  to  give 
an  accurate  idea  of  the  same. 

Three  of  the  manuscript  Journals  of  the  Continental  Congress 
cover  July,  1776.  One  begins,  or  rather  the  first  entry  in  it  is  under 
date  of,  May  25,  1776,  and  ends  July  24.  In  this  appears  the  printed 
copy  of  the  Declaration.  The  next  begins  with  entry  under  date  of 
May  14  (continuing  the  record  of  that  day,  begun  in  the  preceding 
volume),  and  the  last  August  6,  1776.  In  that  the  Declaration  ap 
pears  as  a  regular  and  continuous  entry,  and  is  in  the  same  handwrit 
ing  as  the  rest  of  the  Journal.  The  third  Journal  is  the  Secret 
Domestic  Journal,  which  contains  no  entry  between  June  24  and 
July  8,  1776. 

Taking  your  queries  as  they  come  in  your  letter,  I  may  say,  — 

1st.  The  enclosure  gives  an  idea  of  the  only  printed  copy  of  the 
Declaration  inserted  in  any  manuscript  Journal. 

2d.  As  will  be  seen,  the  printed  names  of  Hancock  and  of  Thom 
son  are  the  only  names  appearing  attached  to  it  in  any  form. 

3d.  It  will  be  seen,  also,  that  the  names  of  the  States  do  not 
appear. 

4th.     The  words,  "  The  foregoing  declaration,"  etc.  (vide  printed 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       119 

relate  to  the  events  of  July  4,  and  all  include  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  in  some  one  or  more  of 

Journal,  ii.  245),  have  not  been  found  in  the  Journals,  neither  in 
the  manuscript  copy  of  the  Declaration  nor  in  the  printed  half- 
sheet.  They  (the  words  above  quoted)  appear  in  the  printed  Jour 
nals  only. 

5th.  Neither  of  the  Public  Journals  nor  the  Secret  Journal  con 
tains  any  written  names  to  the  Declaration. 

Enclosure  marked  No.  1  is  to  represent  the  printed  half-sheet. 
That  marked  No.  2  is  in  a  manner  a  comparison  of  the  entries  in  the 
two  Public  Journals  of  so  much  of  the  minutes  under  the  4th  of  July 
as  relates  to  the  Declaration,  with  the  exception  of  that  part  relating 
to  copies  being  sent  to  the  several  States,  etc.  The  copying  ink 
denotes  the  entries  as  in  the  Journal  containing  the  printed  half- 
sheet  ;  the  red  ink  shows  them  as  appearing  in  the  Journal  containing 
the  Declaration  in  manuscript :  that  is,  the  words  in  red  ink  appear 
in  the  Journal  containing  the  Declaration  in  manuscript  in  addition  to 
those  in  the  former,  while  words  in  red  brackets  do  not  appear 
therein. 

I  am,  sir.  very  obediently  yours, 

S.  M.  HAMILTON. 
MELLEN  CHAMBERLAIN,  Esq.,  etc. 

The  printed  page  not  conveniently  allowing  the  exhibition  by  type 
or  photography  of  Mr.  Hamilton's  enclosures,  they  may  be  described 
as  follows :  No.  1  is  a  folded  sheet  of  paper  designed  to  represent  the 
size  and  form  of  the  manuscript  Journal  which  contains  a  printed 
copy  of  the  Declaration  attached  by  wafers.  The  size  of  the  sheet, 
when  folded,  is  8  by  12^  inches.  On  the  verso  of  the  first  leaf  the 
writing  covers  the  upper  half  of  the  page,  the  lower  half  being  left 
blank,  apparently  to  receive  by  attachment  the  printed  broadside  of 
the  Declaration  now  found  there.  This  copy  is  twice  folded  so  as  to 
adapt  it  to  the  page  of  the  Journal.  The  printed  matter  measures 
11^  by  17 J  inches.  Its  authentication  is  in  print  and  as  follows  :  — 

Signed  by  ORDER  and  in  BEHALF  of  the  CONGRESS 

JOHN  HANCOCK,  President 
Attest 

CHARLES  THOMSON,  Secretary 

The  imprint  is :  "PHILADELPHIA:  PRINTED  BY  JOHN  DUNLAP  " 
Above  this  printed  copy  of  the  Declaration,  and  forming  part  of  the 
manuscript  Journal  which  begins  with  May  25  and  ends  July  24? 
1776,  are  the  following  entries,  under  date  of  July  4,  1776  :  — 


120        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

its  stages.     They  are  all  at  variance  with  the  printed 
Public  Journal,  though  agreeing  with  each  other  in  all 

"  Agreeable  to  the  order  of  the  day  the  Congress  resolved  itself 
into  a  committee  of  the  whole  to  take  into  their  further  consideration 
the  declaration 

"  The  president  resumed  the  chair 

"  Mr.  Harrison  reported  that  the  committee  of  the  whole  Congress 
have  agreed  to  a  Declaration  which  he  delivered  in 

"  The  Declaration  being  again  read  was  agreed  to  as  follows  " 
[Here  the  printed  Declaration  is  attached  by  wafers.] 

On  the  next  page  is  the  following  :  — 

"  Ordered  That  the  declaration  be  authenticated  &  printed 
"  That  the  committee  appointed  to  prepare  the  declaration  superin*, 
tend  &  correct  the  press." 

This  is  the  true  Journal  of  Congress  for  July  4,  omitting  the  order 
respecting  its  transmission,  etc. 

Now  compare  this  with  the  spurious  printed  Journal,  and  the  fals 
ity  of  the  latter  clearly  appears.  The  printed  Journal  reads  :  — 

u  The  foregoing  declaration  was  by  order  of  Congress,  engrossed, 
and  signed  by  the  following  members." 

Then  follow  fifty-five  names  of  gentlemen,  many  of  whom  were  not 
members  of  Congress  at  that  time. 

The  other  copy  of  the  manuscript  Journal  is  as  follows,  so  far  as  it 
differs  from  the  first  copy  ;  and,  as  will  be  seen,  the  differences  are 
merely  verbal.  This  is  found  in  enclosure  No.  2. 

[Journal  entirely  in  manuscript,  with  the  Declaration  in  the  same  hand' 

writing,  from  May  14  to  August  6,  1776. 
So  much  of  the  minutes  under  4th  July  as  relates  to  the  Declaration.] 

Agreeable  to  the  order  of  the  day  the  Congress  resolved  itself  into  a 
committee  of  the  whole  to  take  into  their  further  consideration  the 
declaration  and  after  some  time 

The  president  resumed  the  chair  $• 

Mr.  Harrison  reported  that  the  committee  have  agreed  to  a  declara 
tion,  which  they  desired  him  to  report 

The  declaration  being  read  was  agreed  to  as  follows. 

A  Declaration  by  the  Representatives  of  the  United  States  of  America 

in  Congress  assembled 

[The  italicized  words  do  not  appear  in  the  Journal  to  which  is  at 
tached  the  printed  copy  of  the  Declaration.] 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        121 

essential  particulars.     In  neither  of  them  is  found  an 
order  for  the  subscription  of  the  Declaration  July  4, 

Mr.  Dwight  has  placed  me  under  additional  obligations  by  the  fol 
lowing-  letter,  which  throws  much  light  upon  the  Journals  of  the  Old 
Congress ;  and  it  is  matter  of  regret  that  I  am  unable  to  present  in 
connection  with  this  subject  several  valuable  enclosures  which  he 
caused  to  be  prepared. 

DEPARTMENT  OF  STATE,  WASHINGTON,  December  23,  1884. 

As  to  the  several  Journals :  Charles  Thomson,  as  you  know,  was  the 
"  perpetual  Secretary  "  of  the  Continental  Congress  ;  and,  from  all  I 
can  gather,  he  was  a  man  of  the  strictest  probity,  and  was  most  con 
scientious  in  the  discharge  of  his  important  trusts.  It  would  be  in 
teresting  to  discover  how  much  influence  he  exerted  in  the  first 
councils.  I  am  confident  it  was  considerable.  To  him  we  owe  the 
preservation  of  all  the  records  of  the  Continental  Congress,  —  not  only 
the  Journals,  but  all  those  fragments  now  so  precious,  e.  g.,  the  origi 
nal  motions,  the  reports  of  committees,  the  small  odds  and  ends,  which 
are  the  small  bones  of  history.  They  are  all  in  this  room,  and  at  my 
elbow  as  I  "write.  One  of  them,  for  instance,  is  the  original  of  Lee's 
motion  reproduced,  but  without  proper  explanation,  by  Force,  in  the 
American  Archives.  You  allude  to  it. 

The  Journals  of  Congress  are,  with  some  very  few  exceptions,  en 
tirely  in  the  handwriting  of  Thomson.  He  seems  to  have  been  present 
at  every  session.  The  series  of  the  archives  of  the  Congress  very  pro 
perly  begins  with  what  he  termed  the  "  Rough  Journal,"  beginning 
•with  the  proceedings  of  September  5,  1774,  and  ended  with  the  entry 
of  March  2,  1789,  and  was  probably  written  while  Congress  was  sit 
ting,  the  entries  being  made  directly  after  each  vote  was  taken.  It  is 
contained  in  thirty-nine  small  foolscap  folio  volumes.  The  second  of 
the  series  is  a  fair  copy  of  the  "  Rough  Journal,"  from  September  5, 
1775,  to  January  20,  1779,  —  in  ten  volumes  folio.  From  this  copy,  it 
is  stated  in  a  record  in  the  Bureau,  "  the  Journals  were  printed  ;  and 
such  portions  as  were  deemed  secret  were  marked  or  crossed  by  a  com 
mittee  of  Congress,  —  not  to  be  transcribed."  In  this  he  has  ampli 
fied  some  entries,  and  given  more  care  to  the  style  and  composition  of 
his  sentences. 

This  explanation  will  account  for  the  "  two  Public  Journals."  The 
"  Rough  Journal  "  should  be  regarded  as  the  standard.  No.  3  of  the 
series  of  archives  is  the  "  Secret  Domestic  Journal,"  comprising  entries 
from  May  10, 1775,  to  October  26, 1787  ;  the  fourth  number  is  a  Secret 
Journal,  foreign  and  domestic,  comprising  entries  from  October  18, 
1780,  to  March  29,  1786  (the  foregoing  two  numbers  form  two  vol- 


122        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

nor  any  copy  or  account  of  a  declaration  so  signed, 
nor  any  reference  to  such  a  paper.  On  the  other 

umes).  No.  5  is  in  three  volumes,  and  is  called  "Secret  Journal  of 
Foreign  Affairs,"  November  29,  1775,  to  September  16,  1788.  No.  6 
is  in  three  volumes,  and  is  designated  "  An  imperfect  Secret  Journal ;  " 
it  contains  entries  made  from  the  Journal  of  Congress,  September  17, 
1776,  to  September  16,  1788.  No.  7  is  a  small  quarto  volume,  contain 
ing  but  few  entries,  called  the  "More  Secret  Journal."  No.  8  is  a 
folio,  Secret  Journal  A,  1776-1783  :  the  contents  of  this  volume  appear 
to  be  merely  minutes  of  proceedings,  which  were  afterwards  entered 
on  the  Public  Journals.  (This  volume  does  not  contain  any  record  of 
July  4, 1776,  or  any  reference  to  the  signing  of  the  Declaration.)  The 
foregoing  will  afford  you,  I  trust,  a  sufficiently  just  idea  of  these  in 
valuable  records. 

The  copy  for  the  first  edition  of  the  Journals  was  probably  prepared 
by  Charles  Thomson ;  but  he  was  not  responsible  for  the  matter 
printed  therein,  as  he  distinctly  states  on  the  fly-leaf  of  the  first  vol 
ume  of  the  fair  copy  (No.  2  of  the  series)  that  the  selection  was  made 
by  a  committee  of  Congress.  The  responsibility  for  the  introduction 
of  the  names  of  the  signers  at  the  close  of  the  Declaration  cannot  now 
be  determined.  It  is  entirely  reasonable  to  suppose,  however,  that 
there  was  no  intention  to  mislead ;  but  that,  as  the  names  appeared  in 
no  other  printed  form,  they  were  inserted  for  the  information  of  the 
public.  The  Secret  Journals  were  naturally  not  then  suited  to  publi 
cation.  To  be  sure,  we  must  acknowledge  that  the  entry  of  the  record 
of  engrossing  and  signing  on  the  Secret  rather  than  on  the  Public 
Journal  indicates  that  there  existed  some  reason  for  considering  these 
acts  as  of  a  confidential  character. 

The  Journals,  it  must  be  remembered,  were  not  the  accounts  of  an 
individual,  but  were  the  accepted  records  of  Congress ;  that  then,  as 
now,  each  day's  proceedings  were  read  to  that  body  before  they  ob 
tained  the  authority  necessary  for  their  preservation.  I  dwell  upon 
this  in  order  that  you  may  not  attribute  the  discrepancies  between  the 
originals  and  the  printed  journals  to  the  carelessness  of  a  clerk  or  of 
the  secretary.  In  my  opinion,  the  responsibility  rests  with  Congress 
alone. 

That  part  of  the  Journal  of  1776  as  printed  by  Peter  Force  in  the 
American  Archives  appears  to  me,  from  a  hasty  comparison,  to  be  a 
mongrel,  made  up  primarily  from  the  first  printed  edition  of  1777, 
corrected  in  some  few  particulars  by  the  copy  from  which  that  edition 
was  printed  (No.  2  of  the  series  described  above),  and  punctuated  and 
capitalized  to  suit  his  own  fancy.  He  has  in  the  punctuation  and  cap 
italization  altered  both  the  manuscript  and  printed  versions.  The 
matter  he  appended  as  notes,  and  which  seems  as  much  a  part  of  the 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       123 

hand,  in  one  of  them,  which  is  the  same  as  is  given  in 
the  Proceedings  in  Force's  "Archives,"  is  pasted  a 

original  record  as  the  caption  and  names  of  the  signers  in  the  printed 
Journal  of  1777,  was  taken  from  a  variety  of  sources  in  the  archives, 
to  which  he,  of  course,  had  access.  Mr.  Sparks  offended  also,  and  was 
summarily  criticised,  for  similar  changes  of  the  originals  he  printed. 

With  the  original  of  Madison's  Journal  of  the  Debates  in  the  Consti 
tutional  Convention  we  have  the  autograph  notes  written  out  by  Jeffer 
son  for  Madison,  concerning  the  debates  on  the  Declaration,  which 
Mr.  Gilpin  has  carefully  printed  in  the  Papers  of  James  Madison  (i. 
9-39).  It  might  be  profitable  to  compare  that  version  with  the  por 
tions  of  the  same  printed  in  vol.  i.  of  the  Writings  of  Jefferson,  and  in 
vol.  i.  of  Elliot's  Debates. 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  the  Secret  Journal  containing  the  record 
of  July  19  and  August  2  was  published  in  1821,  it  seems  to  me  very 
strange  that  the  recollections  of  Jefferson  and  others  should  have  been 
preferred  to  that  veritable  official  account  of  the  signing. 

I  am  very  incredulous  as  to  the  existence  of  a  signed  copy  of  the 
Declaration  prior  to  the  engrossed  copy.  We  have  the  veritable  first 
draft  in  the  writing  of  Jefferson,  and  the  remains  of  the  copy  en 
grossed  and  signed  on  parchment  alluded  to  in  the  Secret  Journal  entry 
of  July  19.  Had  there  been  another  bearing  the  signatures  of  the 
delegates,  it  is  fair  to  suppose  that  the  same  care  for  its  preservation 
would  have  been  exercised  as  that  to  which  we  owe  the  other  records 
and  documents.  It  would  not  have  invalidated  the  second  copy.  The 
actual  signing  of  such  a  preliminary  copy  would  have  added  no  more 
strength  to  the  action  of  Congress  in  adopting  the  Declaration  than 
the  entry  on  the  Journal  of  that  action,  which  was  and  is  now  a  con 
clusive  and  binding  record.  It  was  not  signed  on  the  Journal ;  such 
a  signing  would  have  been  a  very  irregular  proceeding.  It  seems  to 
me  that  a  special  direction  to  the  president  of  Congress  and  to  the 
secretary  to  authenticate  the  copies  sent  out  by  order  of  Congress  was 
not  deemed  necessary;  such  an  authentication  was  incident  to  the 
duties  of  their  respective  offices.  The  copies  so  sent  out  bear,  not 
written,  but  printed  signatures. 

Of  that  first  printed  broadside  we  have  the  copy  wafered  in  the 
Journal,  and  another  among  the  papers  of  Washington,  which  he  read, 
or  caused  to  be  read,  to  the  army,  as  mentioned  in  General  Orders  of 
July  9,  1776. 

As  you  have  clearly  demonstrated,  but  for  the  insertion  of  the  names 
in  the  first  printed  Journal  so  as  to  appear  a  part  of  the  record  of  the 
4th  July,  all  this  mystification  could  not  have  occurred.  But  I  repeat 
that  the  insertion  is  not  to  be  regarded  as  an  intention  to  mislead,  but 


124       DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

printed  copy  of  the  Declaration,  authenticated  by  the 
signatures  of  Hancock  and  Thomson,  agreeably  to  the 
order  of  Congress,  and  is  doubtless  one  of  the  copies 
printed  on  the  night  of  the  4th  or  morning  of  the  5th 
of  July.  Had  the  printed  Public  Journal  followed 
this  manuscript,  which  conforms  to  and  explains  all 
extrinsic  facts  appertaining  to  the  Declaration,  all  sub 
sequent  misapprehension  would  have  been  avoided. 
Governor  McKean  had  special  reasons  for  investigat 
ing  the  matter  at  an  early  date.  He  was  present  on 
the  4th  and  voted  for  the  Declaration  ;  but  inasmuch 
as  it  was  not  signed  on  that  day,  as  he  asserted,  his 
name  did  not  appear  on  the  Journal,  nor  on  the  copy 
engrossed  on  parchment  and  signed  August  2,  since  at 
that  time  he  was  away  from  Philadelphia  with  the 
army.  Some  time  later  —  Bancroft  says,  in  1781  — 
he  was  allowed  to  affix  his  signature  to  the  engrossed 
copy,  where  it  now  appears.  His  signing  in  1781  did 
not  affect  the  Journal  of  July  4,  1776,  as  Jefferson 
seems  to  have  supposed  would  be  the  case  with  Thorn 
ton  and  the  New  York  and  several  Pennsylvania 
members,  who  were  likewise  absent  on  July  4  or  not 
then  authorized  to  sign.  McKean's  name  does  not 
appear  among  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  in  the  Journal  printed  in  1777,  nor  in  the 
edition  of  1800.  It  is  given  in  that  of  1823,  and  pos 
sibly  in  some  of  an  earlier  date,  which  I  have  not 
seen.  Now,  at  any  time  after  1781,  if  the  Declaration 

to  enlighten,  the  public ;  and  that  it  is  so  printed  is  due  to  inadver 
tence. 

Believe  me  to  be,  my  dear  sir, 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

THEODORE  F.  DWIGHT, 
Chief  of  Bureau  of  Rolls  and  Library. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        125 

were  printed  from  the  engrossed  copy,  it  would  in 
clude  McKean's  signature;  but  if  from  the  printed 
Journal  of  July  4,  his  signature  would  not  be  found. 
It  was  just  this  discrepancy  between  copies  that  led 
to  an  investigation.  In  the  letter  already  quoted  from, 
Governor  McKean  says  :  "  In  the  manuscript  Journal 
Mr.  Pickering,  then  Secretary  of  State,  and  myself 
saw  a  printed  half-sheet  of  paper,  with  the  names 
of  the  members  afterwards  in  the  printed  Journals 
stitched  in ;  "  and  in  another  letter,1  June  17,  1817, 
he  says  that  neither  the  manuscript  of  the  Public 
Journal  nor  that  of  the  Secret  Journal  has  any  written 
names  annexed  to  the  Declaration.  In  this  statement 
he  is  undoubtedly  correct ;  but  apparently  he  has  con 
founded,  in  the  lapse  of  years  and  by  the  loss  of  mem 
ory,  the  printed  copy  authenticated  by  Hancock  and 
Thomson,  which  is  wafered  to  the  manuscript  Journal, 
with  a  copy  bearing  signatures,  which  does  not  now 
appear.  Trusting  to  this  statement  of  Governor 
McKean  respecting  the  copy  of  the  Declaration  with 
the  signatures  of  the  signers  stitched  into  the  manu 
script  Journal,  I  had  supposed,  until  I  received  Mr. 
Hamilton's  letter,  that  the  falsification  was  in  the 
record ;  but  it  now  appears  that  it  is  in  the  printed 
Journal. 

As  has  been  said,  had  the  Public  Journal  as  we 
have  it  been  printed  from  the  manuscript  Journal  as 
it  stands  to-day,  with  the  printed  Declaration  omitting 
the  authenticating  signatures  of  Hancock  and  Thom 
son,  we  should  have  a  narrative  of  the  proceedings  on 
the  4th  precisely  as  they  occurred.  But,  unfortunately, 
it  was  not  so  printed.  Published  as  it  was,  and  as 
we  have  it,  the  Journal  is  doubtless  erroneous  and 

1  Portfolio,  September,  1817,  246. 


126        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

misleading ;  and  though,  at  this  late  day,  we  may  be 
unable  to  divine  all  the  reasons  which  prompted  the 
course  that  was  pursued,  there  is  no  evidence  of  a  de 
sign  to  falsify  the  record.  When  "  the  committee 
appointed  to  superintend  the  publication  of  the  Jour 
nals  "  were  empowered  and  instructed,  by  a  resolve  of 
September  26,  1776,  to  employ  Robert  Aitkin  "  to 
reprint  the  said  Journals  from  the  beginning,  with  all 
possible  expedition,  and  continue  to  print  the  same" 1 
Charles  Thomson  probably  furnished  him  with  a  copy 
of  the  proceedings  of  July  4,  and  their  authority  did 
not  extend  to  the  Secret  Journal,  in  which  alone  was 
entered  the  resolution  of  July  19  for  the  engrossment 
of  the  Declaration  on  parchment  and  the  subsequent 
signing  thereof,  August  2.  But  when  they  furnished 
copy  for  July  4,  they  appended  to  the  Declaration 
the  following  statement :  "  The  foregoing  declaration 
was,  by  order  of  Congress,  engrossed,  and  signed 
by  the  following  members."  We  infer,  and  have  a 
right  to  infer,  that  the  engrossment  and  signing  were 
on  July  4 ;  but  the  printed  Journal  so  affirms  only 
by  implication.  All  the  facts  stated  were  true  at 
the  time  of  their  statement,  some  time  subsequent  to 
September  26.  The  error  consists  in  throwing  back 
to  July  4  the  order  for  engrossment  of  July  19,  and 
the  signing  of  August  2.  Any  more  specific  state 
ment  of  these  later  matters  would  have  been  a  breach 
of  the  resolution  of  secrecy  which  was  repealed,  and 
then  only  virtually,  by  a  resolve  fifty  years  afterwards 
to  print  these  Secret  Journals.  The  veil  of  secrecy 
which  rested  on  the  transactions  of  July  19  and  Au 
gust  2  undoubtedly  had  a  tendency  to  refer  the  events 
of  those  days  to  July  4.  Evidently  Mr.  Jefferson, 

1  Journal,  ii.  391. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       127 

one  of  the  most  intelligent  and  active  participators  in 
those  events  of  July  19  and  August  2,  was  surprised 
when  they  were  recalled  to  his  notice  in  1822  by  the 
Secret  Journal,  which  had  then  been  published  for  the 
first  time.1  Apparently,  and  not  without  reason,  under 
these  circumstances  of  secrecy,  every  transaction  relat 
ing  to  the  Declaration  of  Independence  had  been  re 
ferred,  both  by  Jefferson  and  John  Adams,  to  July  4. 
For  more  than  six  months  Congress  had  withheld 
the  names  of  those  signing  the  Declaration.  This 
may  have  been  from  prudential  considerations.  Un 
less  the  Declaration  was  made  good  by  arms,  every 
party  signing  it  might  have  been  held  personally  re 
sponsible  for  an  overt  act  of  treason.  Whether  this 
would  have  been  the  case  in  respect  to  Hancock  and 
Thomson,  who  were  not  acting  in  any  personal  capa 
city,  and  possibly  even  in  opposition  to  their  own  con 
victions,  in  accordance  with  an  express  direction  of 
Congress,  may  be  a  matter  of  question.  But  whatever 
may  have  been  their  reasons,  there  is  no  doubt  as  to 
the  fact  that  Congress  not  only  sat  with  closed  doors, 
and  pledged  the  members  to  secrecy,2  but  withheld 
even  from  its  Secret  Journals  some  of  its  most  impor 
tant  proceedings.  The  fact  has  already  been  stated 
in  regard  to  this  very  matter  of  independence  that 
Congress  had  deemed  it  imprudent  to  extend  on  its 
Journals  Lee's  resolutions  on  which  the  battle  was 
fought ;  and  had  they  not  been  preserved  on  the  files, 
we  should  never  have  known  their  authentic  form  from 
any  public  record.3 

1  American  Historical  Review,  i.  168. 

2  A  facsimile  of  the  Resolution  of  Secrecy  of  November  9,  1775, 
may  be  found  in  American  Archives,  4th  ser,  iii.  1916. 

3  See  facsimile  of  these  resolutions.     Ibid.  4th  ser,  vi.  1700. 


128        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

Such  are  the  facts  respecting  the  signing  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  errors  in  the 
printed  Journals  recording  the  same.1 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  doubt  should  rest  upon 
transactions,  and  the  records  of  transactions,  which 
are  connected  with  an  event  so  important  in  the  his 
tory  of  a  nation  as  the  declaration  of  its  independ 
ence.  The  printed  Journal,  so  far  as  relates  to  what 

1  In  the  foregoing1  paper  it  has  been  my  purpose  to  discuss  a  single 
qiiestion  :  Was  the  Declaration  of  Independence  signed  July  4  by  the 
members  of  Congress  ?  Had  my  aim  been  more  popular,  I  should 
have  drawn,  for  more  interesting  particulars,  on  the  authorities 
cited  in  Winsor's  Handbook  of  the  American  Revolution,  103  et  seq., 
and  Poole's  Index,  339,  title  "  Declaration  of  Independence." 

The  reader  who  has  followed  me  in  the  foregoing  paper  may  ask 
why  Force,  Webster,  Bancroft,  and  Winthrop  have  not  explained 
the  matter,  instead  of  each  resting  on  his  own  authority  in  opposi 
tion  to  the  express  statements  of  Jefferson  and  Adams  who  have  the 
support  of  the  Journal.  The  answer,  except  so  far  as  Force  is  con 
cerned,  is  obvious  :  that  neither  the  observance  of  proportion  in  a 
general  history  nor  the  limits  of  a  Fourth  of  July  oration  will  allow 
of  minute  and  tedious  explanations.  But  with  respect  to  Force  the 
case  is  different.  The  limits  of  his  monograph  on  the  Declaration 
were  not  restricted.  He  was  brought  face  to  face  with  the  question. 
He  understood  it  better  than  any  other  man,  and  better  than  any 
other  he  could  have  explained  the  difficulty  had  he  chosen  to  do  so. 
He  did  not  so  choose.  The  trouble  with  him  was  that  his  pamphlet 
was  controversial.  It  was  an  attack  on  that  part  of  Lord  Mahon's 
History  of  England,  in  which  he  gives  an  account  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  Following  Jefferson  and  the  printed  Journals  of 
Congress,  Lord  Mahon  had  said  :  "  The  Declaration  of  Independence, 
appearing  the  act  of  the  people,  was  finally  adopted  and  signed  by 
every  member  present  at  the  time,  except  only  Dickinson.  This  was 
on  the  4th  of  July."  —  History  of  England,  vi.  98.  Force's  curt 
answer  to  this  is  as  follows :  "  The  Declaration  was  not  '  signed  by 
every  member  present  on  the  4th  of  July,'  except  Mr.  Dickinson."  — 
Force's  Declaration  of  Independence,  63.  Thus  he  made  a  point 
against  Lord  Mahon  on  the  score  of  accuracy.  True,  Force  knew 
how,  and  by  what  authority,  his  lordship  was  misled.  He  could  have 
given  the  explanation  which  would  have  relieved  the  historian ;  but 
that  was  not  his  purpose. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE        129 

took  place  en  the  4th  of  July,  1776,  is  clearly  untrust 
worthy  ;  and  one  of  the  original  manuscript  Journals 
is  not  altogether  accurate.  When  the  record  was 
extended  on  that  Journal,  by  wafering  to  a  page, 
apparently  left  blank  for  the  purpose,  the  printed 
copy  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  authenti 
cated  by  the  signatures  of  Hancock  and  Thomson,  it 
was  made  to  assert  facts  as  of  the  4th  of  July  which 
actually  occurred  on  the  5th.  The  authentication 
and  the  printing  of  the  Declaration  were  ordered  on 
the  4th  as  something  to  be  done  later;  and  should 
not  have  been  entered  as  something  done  on  that  day, 
as  the  Journal  affirms.  Nor  is  this  unfortunate  error 
confined  to  the  records.  The  engrossed  copy  of  the 
Declaration  which  was  signed  on  August  2  is  made  to 
say,  in  substance,  that  all  the  names  attached  to  it 
were  there  subscribed  on  July  4 ;  and  there  is  nothing 
on  the  instrument  to  indicate  that  any  signatures 
were  added  on  August  2,  and  even  of  a  date  so  late 
as  1781,  when  McKean  signed  it. 

These  errors  are  the  more  to  be  regretted,  since 
they  are  irremediable.  They  must  stand  on  record 
for  all  time.  The  Journals  in  110  new  edition  will 
be  changed  so  as  to  conform  to  the  truth ;  and  should 
they  be  so  changed  they  would  lose  their  authority  as 
the  Journals  of  Congress.  But  though  the  record 
must  stand,  and  the  engrossed  copy  and  all  its  fac 
similes  continue  to  assert  that  it  was  signed  July  4, 
there  can  be  no  objection  to  the  reconstruction  of 
these  documents,  as  matters  of  history,  so  that  they 
shall  conform  to  the  truth. 

The  several  entries  on  the  Journal  which  relate  to 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  should  read  as  fol 
lows  :  — 


130        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

"  July  4,  1776.  The  Declaration  being  read  was  agreed 
to,  as  follows :  [Here  should  appear  the  Declaration  with 
out  any  signatures  or  authentication,  as  is  the  case  with 
one  of  the  manuscript  Journals.] 

"  Ordered,  That  the  Declaration  be  authenticated  and 
printed.  That  the  committee  appointed  to  prepare  the 
Declaration  superintend  and  correct  the  press,  etc. 

"  July  19.  Resolved,  That  the  Declaration  passed  on 
the  4th  be  fairly  engrossed  on  parchment,  with  the  title, 
etc. ;  and  that  the  same,  when  engrossed,  be  signed  by  every 
member  of  Congress. 

"  August  2.  The  Declaration  agreed  to  on  July  4, 
being  engrossed  and  compared  at  the  table,  was  signed  by 
the  members,  agreeably  to  the  resolution  of  July  19. 

"  November  4.  The  Hon.  Matthew  Thornton,  Esq.,  a 
delegate  from  New  Hampshire,  attended,  and  produced  his 
credentials. 

"  Ordered,  That  Mr.  Thornton  be  directed,  agreeably  to 
the  resolve  passed  July  19,  to  affix  his  signature  to  the 
engrossed  copy  of  the  Declaration,  with  the  date  of  his  sub 
scription. 

"  January  18, 1777.  Ordered,  That  an  authentic  copy  of 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  with  the  names  of  the 
members  of  Congress  subscribing  the  same,  be  sent  to  each 
of  the  United  States,  and  they  be  desired  to  have  the  same 
put  upon  record. 

" ,  1781.  Whereas  it  has  been  made  to  appear  to 

this  present  Congress  that  the  Hon.  Thomas  McKean  was 
a  member  of  Congress  from  Delaware  in  the  year  1776, 
and  that,  on  July  4  of  that  year  he  was  present  and  voted 
for  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but  being  absent  with 
the  army  at  the  time  of  the  general  subscription  of  that 
instrument  on  August  2  :  therefore, 

"  Resolved,  That  the  said  Hon.  Thomas  McKean  be 
allowed  to  affix  his  signature  to  the  aforesaid  Declaration, 
he  adding  thereto  the  date  of  such  subscription." 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       131 

Such  was  the  course  pursued  by  McKean  and 
other  post-signers  of  the  Articles  of  Confederation, 
which  were  agreed  to  by  Congress,  July  9,  1778. 
McKean's  name  is  signed  as  follows  :  "  Tho.  M'Kean, 
Feb.  12,  1779." 

With  the  foregoing  changes  and  additions  the  Jour 
nal  of  Congress  would  conform  to  the  real  transac 
tions  respecting  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

The  engrossed  copy  reads  as  follows :  "  In  Con 
gress,  July  4,  1776.  The  UNANIMOUS  DECLARATION 
of  the  thirteen  united  STATES  OF  AMERICA."  After 
the  Declaration  follow  the  signatures.  They  should 
have  been  preceded  by  some  such  recital  as  the  fol 
lowing  :  "  The  foregoing  Declaration  having  been 
agreed  to  on  July  4,  by  the  delegates  of  the  thirteen 
united  colonies,  in  Congress  assembled,  and  the  same 
having  been  engrossed,  is  now  subscribed,  agreeably 
to  a  resolution  passed  July  19,  by  the  members  of 
Congress  present  this  2d  day  of  August,  1776." 

Independence  was  announced  to  the  world  July  4, 
1776.  That  is  glory  enough  for  the  most  insatiate  of 
days.  It  needs  not  the  honors  of  July  2,  nor  those  of 
August  2.  On  the  former  of  these  days  when  Lee's 
resolution,  "  that  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of 
right  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States ;  and 
that  all  political  connection  between  them  and  the 
State  of  Great  Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  dissolved," 
—  when  this  resolution  was  agreed  to  by  the  Congress 
on  July  2,  the  battle  had  been  fought  and  the  victory 
won.  Two  days  later  came  the  4th,  which,  like  all  its 
successors,  was  less  the  occasion  of  a  battle  than  of 
a  triumph.  What  was  done  on  July  2  realized  the 
ardent  wishes  of  the  patriotic  party  in  thirteen  colo 
nies.  Its  consummated  act  was  a  notable  achievement 


132        DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE 

of  advocacy  ;  and  the  great  patriot  fondly  hoped  that  it 
would  be  celebrated  to  the  remotest  times.1     But  it  is 

1  John  Adams,  writing  to  Mrs.  Adams  from  Philadelphia,  July  3, 
1776,  said :  ' '  Yesterday  the  greatest  question  was  decided  which 
ever  was  debated  in  America,  and  a  greater,  perhaps,  never  was  nor 
will  be  decided  among  men.  A  resolution  was  passed  without  one 
dissenting  colony,  'that,  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of  right  ought 
to  he,  free  and  independent  States,'  etc.  You  will  see  in  a  few  days 
a  Declaration  setting  forth  the  causes  which  have  impelled  us  to  this 
mighty  revolution.  .  .  .  The  second  day  of  July,  1776,  will  be  the 
most  memorable  epocha  in  the  history  of  America.  ...  It  ought  to 
be  commemorated  as  the  day  of  deliverance,  by  solemn  acts  of  devo 
tion  to  God  Almighty,"  etc.  —  Works,  ix.  417.  But  it  was  to  be 
otherwise.  The  second  day  of  July  has  altogether  passed  from 
the  memory  of  men.  In  fifty  years  from  that  time  the  editor  of 
Niles's  Weekly  Register,  shortly  after  the  death  of  Adams  and  Jeffer 
son  in  1826,  quoting  the  above  letter,  changed  its  date  from  the  3d  to 
the  5th  of  July,  and  printed  the  passage,  ' '  the  second  day  of  July, 
1776,"  as  follows  :  "  The  Fourth  of  July,  1776,  wiU  be  a  memorable 
epoch  in  this  history  of  America !  " 

Even  so  careful  a  writer  as  Mr.  Webster  fell,  in  his  later  life,  into 
the  same  error.  From  the  accuracy  of  his  account  of  the  authentica 
tion  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  it  is  evident  that  he  had 
examined  all  that  had  been  published  on  that  subject  before  1826. 
Nothing  of  value  has  since  been  added  to  his  statement,  while  some 
of  the  later  glosses  could  well  be  spared.  —  Works,  i.  129.  But  he 
did  not  undertake  to  explain  how  the  confusion  arose  :  perhaps  he 
did  not  even  know,  because,  when  he  wrote  the  eulogy  on  Adams  and 
Jefferson,  he  was  far  away  from  the  original  Journals,  an  inspection 
of  which  alone  discloses  the  source  of  the  error.  In  this  eulogy  he 
has  given  two  supposititious  speeches  on  the  resolution  of  July  2.  That 
these  speeches  were  on  the  resolution,  and  not  on  the  Declaration,  is 
evident  from  the  opening  sentence,  "  Let  us  pause  !  This  step,  once 
taken,  cannot  be  retraced.  This  resolution,  once  passed,  will  cut  off 
all  hope  of  reconciliation."  —  Works,  i.  132.  Notwithstanding  this, 
Mr.  Webster,  writing  in  1846,  to  one  who  had  inquired  respecting  the 
authenticity  of  the  speech  attributed  to  John  Adams,  said  :  "  The  day 
after  the  Declaration  was  made,  Mr.  Adams,  in  writing  to  a  friend, 
declared  the  event  to  be  one  which  '  ought  to  be  commemorated  as 
the  day  of  deliverance,  by  solemn  acts  of  devotion  to  God  Almighty.'  " 
—  Works,  i.  150.  It  is  needless  to  add  that  Adams's  letter  was  writ 
ten  the  day  before  the  Declaration  instead  of  the  day  after,  and 
referred  to  the  Resolution  of  Independence  of  July  2,  and  not  to  the 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE       133 

otherwise.  The  glory  of  the  act  is  overshadowed  by 
the  glory  of  its  annunciation. 

Declaration  of  July  4.  For  some  account  of  the  origin  of  the  change 
of  the  date  of  John  Adams's  letter,  see  Letters  Addressed  to  his  Wife, 
i.  128,  n. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  RELATIONS 

OF   THE 

AMERICAN  COLONIES  TO  THE  ENGLISH  GOVERN 
MENT  AT  THE   COMMENCEMENT  OF  THE 
AMERICAN   REVOLUTION 

A  PAPER  BEAD  BEFORE  THE  AMERICAN  HISTORICAL  ASSOCIATION, 
IN  BOSTON,  MAY  23,  1887 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  RELATIONS 

OF   THE 

AMERICAN  COLONIES  TO  THE  ENGLISH  GOVERN 
MENT  AT  THE   COMMENCEMENT  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 


No  thoughtful  reader  closes  a  volume  of  American 
history,  or  perhaps  of  any  history,  without  the  con 
viction  that  the  author's  conclusions  drawn  from  the 
included  facts  depend  very  much  upon  his  point  of 
view,  as  well  as  upon  the  forum  to  which  he  refers 
them  for  adjudication ;  and  that  in  estimating  the 
value  of  his  work  we  must  likewise  take  into  account 
his  nationality,  political  and  ecclesiastical  associations, 
constitution  of  mind,  and  temperament,  as  influences 
which,  unconsciously  it  may  be,  have  affected  his 
judgment. 

There  is  high  authority  for  something  like  this. 
In  the  preface  to  Chalmers's  "  Introduction  to  the 
History  of  the  Revolt  of  the  Colonies,"  Jared  Sparks, 
to  whom  that  preface  is  attributed,  says  "  the  author 
was  a  lawyer,  and  he  has  discussed  the  subject  before 
him  in  the  spirit  of  his  profession,  adhering  to  legal 
interpretations  and  distinctions.  It  is  possible  that 
any  American  lawyer,  taking  the  same  premises, 
would  come  to  the  same  conclusions  ;  and  it  may  be 
admitted  that  the  premises  are  correct,  since  they  are 


138  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

drawn  from  state  papers  and  legal  records  of  the 
highest  authority.  The  error  lies  in  the  mode  of 
viewing  the  subject." 

I  quote  this  passage  for  the  immunity  it  affords 
one  who  wishes  to  present  some  old  subjects  from  a 
new  point  of  view ;  and  because  nowhere  else  in 
Sparks's  writings  have  I  noticed  a  better  illustration 
of  two  of  his  eminent  qualities  as  an  historian,  —  per 
fect  candor  and  critical  sagacity.1 

1  Sparks  was  a  careful  investigator,  as  any  one  finds  who  enters 
fields  which  he  has  reaped  with  expectation  of  profitable  gleaning ; 
but  if  to  learn  his  methods  and  to  catch  his  spirit,  no  time  so  spent 
ought  to  be  regarded  as  time  lost. 

An  American  in  every  fibre  of  his  constitution,  Sparks  believed  in 
the  justice  of  the  Revolutionary  cause,  and  was  loyal  to  the  memory 
of  those  whose  lives  he  wrote  ;  but  he  never  exalted  his  heroes  by 
belittling  their  associates  or  by  maligning  their  opponents. 

He  placed  the  American  cause  in  the  most  favorable  light,  and  did 
not  indulge  in  that  urbane  condescension  towards  opponents  which 
sometimes  marks  the  meritorious  work  of  Lord  Mahon,  and  he  never 
imperiled  his  case  as  Lecky,  an  abler  writer  than  Lord  Mahon,  some 
times  has  done  by  inattention  to  facts  essential  to  its  support. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  Sparks  conceal  ugly  facts,*  or  change 
their  import  by  artful  and  disingenuous  arrangement  of  them.  He 
arrayed  all  the  forces,  friendly  or  hostile,  although,  as  it  sometimes 

*  Lord  Mahon  charged  him  with  doing  so,  but  I  think  Sparks's  vindication  of 
his  integrity  ia  complete.  The  strongest  case  against  him  is  that  of  suppressing 
Washington's  reiteration  of  an  opinion  unfavorable  to  New  England.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  Washington  entertained  such  an  opinion.  That  constitutes  an  histori 
cal  fact :  but  if  he  has  recorded  that  opinion  in  a  letter  to  Brown,  does  it  make  it 
any  more  a  fact  in  that  he  has  also  recorded  it  in  letters  to  Jones  and  Robinson  ? 
Sparks  gives  the  first  record,  but  to  save  space  omits  the  paragraphs  in  which 
similar  opinions  are  given  in  letters  to  two  other  correspondents.  That,  I  think, 
states  the  case  fairly.  It  may  be  said  that  Sparks  should  have  given  all  such 
passages  or  indicated  their  omission  by  stars  or  otherwise.  Why  those  opinions 
more  than  others  ?  To  have  given  a  resume"  of  all  omitted  passages  would  have 
swelled  his  volumes  unduly.  If  proper  editing  would  require  such  notice  of  repe 
titious  passages,  why  not,  on  the  same  grounds,  the  omission  of  all  repetitious  or 
unimportant  letters  ?  It  may  be  admitted,  however,  that  Sparks's  editorial  rules 
are  not  those  now  in  vogue ;  but  in  fairness  it  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  that  in 
dealing  with  such  a  mass  as  the  Washington  papers,  Sparks  was  confronted  with  a 
new  and  very  difficult  problem.  See  also  H.  B.  Adams  in  Magazine  of  American 
History,  July,  1888. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  139 

Between  the  peace  of  1763  and  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  the  political  relations  of  the  American 
colonies  to  the  crown,  and  to  Parliament,  and  the 
degree  of  their  subordination  to  imperial  authority, 
were  questions  of  practical  import  which  gave  rise  to 
discussions  sometimes  profound  and  always  earnest ; 
but  after  April  19,  1775,  the  clamor  which  they 
had  occasioned  was,  for  a  time,  silenced  by  the 
greater  din  of  arms.  During  the  period  of  constitu 
tion-making  which  ensued,  they  were  often  referred 
to  in  the  debates  of  the  Convention  of  1787  and  in 
the  pages  of  the  "  Federalist ;  "  but  not  long  after  they, 
with  other  causes  of  the  Eevolution,  were  relegated 
to  the  closet  of  the  historian. 

My  purpose   in  this  paper   is  to  suggest  that  the 
questions  rife  at  that  stage  of  the  Eevolu-  The  ques. 
tion  were  not  new  questions  —  only  newly   tions  of 
important ;  —  that   they   were   coeval   with   lutio^not 
the  first  political  organizations  in  the  Brit-    new- 
ish- American  colonies,  and  had  vexed  them  at  every 

happened,  his  flank  was  turned,  or  his  front  disordered  by  mutinous 
auxiliaries  which  he  had  brought  into  the  field.* 

History  was  regarded  by  Sparks,  as  it  ought  to  be  by  every  one,  as 
the  record  of  impartial  judgment  concerning  the  motives  and  conduct 
of  men,  of  parties,  and  of  nations,  set  forth  in  their  best  light  ;  and 
he  was  incapable  of  attempting  to  pervert  that  judgment  by  doubt 
ful  testimony  or  by  unscrupulous  advocacy,  which  represents  one 
party  as  altogether  wise  and  patriotic  and  the  other  as  altogether 
unwise  and  malignant,  —  an  attempt  which  must  ultimately  fail,  since 
it  finds  no  support  in  the  nature  of  man,  in  intelligent  observation,  or 

*  An  instance  is  found  in  Sparks's  Franklin  (iv.  450),  where  he  seems  to 
justify  the  use  made  of  Hutchinson's  private  letters,  on  the  ground  that  Hutehin- 
soii  had  secretly  used  Franklin's  in  the  same  way  ;  but  from  Hutchinson's  letter 
to  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth,  which  Sparks  prints,  it  is  evident  that  Franklin's  let 
ter,  instead  of  being  private,  was  his  official  letter,  as  agent,  to  the  Speaker  of  the 
House,  and  therefore  public  property  ;  and,  as  may  be  conjectured,  Hutchinson 
sent  it  to  the  Earl  of  Dartmouth  unofficially  lest,  upon  a  "  call  for  papers,"  it 
should  find  its  way  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  thence,  as  had  Bernard's  and 
Gage's  letters,  back  to  Boston.  See  R.  Frothingham's  Warren,  225  n. 


140  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

stage  of  their  development  down  to  the  Revolution  ; 
and,  instead  of  being  settled  by  that  event,  that  they 
are  still  vital  —  and  are  not  unlikely  once  more  to 
become  absorbing  questions,  as  more  than  once  in  the 
mean  time  they  have  been.  Their  settlement  on  a 
just  basis  depends,  as  Dr.  Sparks  seemed  to  think, 
upon  the  selection  of  the  right  point  of  view.  And 
since  discordant  opinions  have  arisen  in  respect  to  the 
same  facts  and  circumstances  when  submitted  to  sim 
ilar  apprehensive  intelligences,  history  should  serve 
as  a  lens  which  gathers  up  all  the  rays  colored  by  pas 
sion,  prejudice,  interest,  or  unwarranted  judgments, 
and  recomposes  them  into  the  white  light  of  truth.1 
If  the  controversy  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution 
respected  the  political  relations  of  the  colo- 
compe-  nies  to  Great  Britain,  and  the  degree  of  sub 
ordination  due  from  remote  dependencies  to 
some  central  authority,  what  tribunal  had 
jurisdiction  of  such  questions,  and  by  what  principles 
were  they  to  be  determined  ?  Were  they  determina- 
ble  solely,  as  the  Tories  in  both  countries  claimed, 
by  the  British  constitution  ?  or,  as  the  Whigs  finally 
claimed,  had  the  colonial  constitutions  acquired  that 
degree  of  consistency,  and  the  people  living  under 
them  such  numbers  and  weight  in  the  empire,  as  war 
ranted  them  in  determining  their  inter-state  relations 

in  common  sense.     He   had  a  healthy  contempt  for  demagogues,  — 
historical  demagogues  in  particular  —  as  corruptors  of  youth.* 

1  The  following  paper  was  prepared  with  no  view  to  its  publica 
tion,  but  merely  to  be  read  before  the  Historical  Association.  Nor  is 
it  the  result  of  any  exhaustive  study  of  the  precise  questions  of  which 
it  treats  ;  and  the  writer,  although  he  believes  in  the  essential  valid 
ity  of  the  historical  propositions  which  it  undertakes  to  set  forth, 
desires,  nevertheless,  that  they  should  be  regarded  as  theses  for  dis 
cussion  rather  than  as  his  final  judgments. 

*  Life  of  Sparks,  i.  571,  ii.  180  n. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  141 

in  accordance  with  these  constitutions  ?  Or  if  we 
say,  as  there  is  some  reason  for  saying,  that  the  real 
difficulty  was  practical  rather  than  political,  and  re 
lated  principally  to  the  degree  in  which  the  interests 
of  agricultural  states  ought  to  be  subsidiary  to  the 
mercantile  policy  of  British  merchants,  then  perhaps 
an  appeal  would  lie  to  the  economic  system  which 
Adam  Smith  was  just  bringing  into  prominence,  with 
promise  of  free  trade  to  the  colonies  agreeably  to  the 
policy  since  adopted  by  the  British  government.  Or, 
finally,  was  the  question  one  concerning  the  rights  of 
man,  as  Jefferson  claimed ;  and  in  that  case,  what 
rights :  those  which  are  natural,  positive,  and  inalien 
able,  or  such  as  are  qualified  by  public  law,  constitu 
tions,  and  municipal  organizations  ?  On  the  question 
in  this  form  the  opinions  of  authoritative  writers 
on  government  would  be  entitled  to  great  weight. 
Clearly  much  depends  upon  the  forum,  as  well  as 
upon  the  point  of  view.  Sparks  suggested  the  error 
of  Chalmers,  which  was  also  that  of  the  king  and  his 
ministers,  and  of  Parliament,  and  of  the  Tories  on 
both  sides  of  the  water.  Their  facts  might  be  well 
authenticated  and  their  logic  valid,  but  they  looked 
at  the  subjects  in  controversy  "  from  the  wrong  point 
of  view,"  unless  we  agree  with  Gold  win  Smith,  who, 
it  is  reported,  regards  the  Revolution  as  a  calamity 
to  both  parties,  by  which  America  was  deprived  of 
her  history,  and  a  great  schism  was  caused  in  the 
Anglo-Saxon  race. 

The  Whigs  conducted  the  controversy  with  infinite 
tact,  changing  ground  as  the  exigencies  of 
their  situation  required.  At  first,  as  a  party,  oti(f  part"" 
they  argued  the  question  as  one  arising  un 
der  the  British  constitution  ;  and  finally,  as  Jefferson 
declared,  by  their  inalienable  rights  as  men. 


142  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

At  no  time  before  or  since  the  period  between  1763 
and  1776  has  the  Anglo-American  shown  greater  in 
tellectual  activity  or  a  firmer  grasp  of  political  philo 
sophy  or  more  aptness  in  adapting  it  to  practical  pol 
itics.  Sprung  from  the  parent  stock  at  the  time  of 
its  greatest  vigor  and  of  its  most  splendid  achieve 
ment,  as  if  by  natural  selection  for  his  work  in  the 
New  World,  he  was  less  endued  with  the  spirit  which 
sought  expression  in  the  imaginative  literature  of  the 
great  dramatists  than  with  those  principles  meditated 
by  Sir  John  Eliot  in  his  lonely  cell,  and  for  which 
Hampden  died  on  the  field,  —  principles  which 
moulded  the  constitution,  so  that  it  restrained  the 
power  of  the  crown,  enlarged  that  of  the  people,  and 
gave  free  play  to  that  genius  which  made  Great  Brit 
ain,  after  Rome,  the  greatest  power  for  civilization 
the  world  has  ever  known.  Of  such  origin  and  with 
such  associations  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  adopting 
the  conclusions  of  Sidney,  Harrington,  and  Locke,  — 
the  principles  of  nature  and  eternal  reason,  as  John 
Adams  called  them,  —  applied  them  to  public  affairs 
in  a  body  of  political  literature  unsurpassed  in  amount 
or  quality  by  anything  which  preceded  or  which  has 
followed.  Had  their  writings  been  of  the  closet  merely, 
such  encomium  would  be  extravagant ;  but  what  justi 
fies  it  is  that  profound  speculations  on  the  nature  and 
purpose  of  government  were  united  with  a  practical 
sagacity  which  adapted  means  to  ends  and  secured 
the  result  desired. 

This  period  of  discussion  was  followed  by  seven 
What  years  of  war,  in  which,  by  a  series  of  vic- 
the  war  tories  some  of  which  were  military  and 
others  only  moral,  they  made  good  the  de 
claration  that  "  these  united  colonies  are,  and  of  right 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  143 

ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  states."  The  war 
settled  that,  if  it  settled  nothing  more.  Then  followed 
the  Confederation.  The  states  were  jealous  of  their 
rights,  and  some  of  them  insisted  on  monopolizing  for 
their  own  use  advantages  which  the  Confederacy 
should  have  shared.  The  government  fell  into  de 
crepitude,  and  the  people  narrowly  escaped  anarchy. 
In  due  time  the  colonies,  by  their  representatives, 
met  in  Philadelphia  and  formed  a  general  constitu 
tion.  Presumably  the  result  of  their  labors  would 
embody  the  principles  which  they  had  adopted  in 
their  controversy  with  Great  Britain,  at  least  as 
modified  by  the  vicissitudes  of  war  and  by  their  ap 
plication  to  practical  affairs.  But  how  far  this  was 
the  case  will  appear  if  we  examine  the  questions  one 
by  one.  Things  do  not  change  by  changing  their 
name. 

If  the  quarrel  between  Great  Britain  and  her  colo 
nies  was  respecting  the  king's  prerogatives,    some 
and  the  colonial  contention  was  that  such    thmss 

i  •    i  11  •     i         which  it 

large  and  varied  powers  could   not  wisely,    did  not 
nor  consistently  with  the  spirit  of  the  con-    settle- 
stitution  since  1688,  be  intrusted  to  a  single  person, 
however  exalted,   or  wise  or  well-disposed,  they  did 
not  long  continue  of  that  opinion  ;  for  in  forming  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  they  clothed  their 
President  with  prerogatives  such  as  no  British  sover 
eign  since  the  English  Revolution  had  exercised.1 

Was  it  the  question  of  the  right  of  Parliament  to 
enact  commercial  laws  which  injuriously  affected  the 
colonies  whose  chief  interest  was  agricultural  ?  Our 
tonnage  act,  passed  in  the  first  session  of  Congress, 
was  similar  in  principle  and  design  to  the  acts  of 

1  See  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  ser.  2,  v.  156. 


144  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

Charles  II.,  and  with  some  modifications  is  still  in 
force,  and  has  operated,  and  now  operates,  unfavor 
ably  to  the  agricultural  States  of  the  seaboard  which 
stand  in  similar  relations  to  the  commercial  and 
manufacturing  States  of  the  North  as  the  colonies 
stood  to  Great  Britain  ;  nor  need  I  say  that  our  trade 
laws  produced  similar  disquiet,  and  at  one  time  threat 
ened  serious  consequences. 

Or  was  it  a  question  of  taxation  by  a  body  in  which 
they  neither  had,  nor  could  have,  adequate  representa 
tion  ?  That  has  been  the  complaint  in  our  Territories 
and  sparsely  populated  States,  as  it  was  in  the  days 
of  the  Stamp  Act ;  and  though  not  yet  loud  or  serious, 
it  may  become  so,  and  with  the  difference  that  instead 
of  being  a  hardship  feared  it  will  be  a  hardship  felt. 

If  the  appointment  and  pay  of  the  judiciary  with 
out  efficient  control  of  it  by  the  people  or  their  as 
semblies  caused  rational  discontent,  the  grievance 
remains  under  the  new  government  as  it  was  under 
the  old,  and  is  aggravated  by  the  adoption  of  the 
English  system  of  Equity,  Prize,  and  Admiralty  juris 
diction  to  an  extent  unknown  to  the  colonies. 

Finally,  was  it  the  theoretical  question  of  the  uni 
versal,  inalienable  rights  of  man  to  life,  liberty,  and 
the  pursuit  of  happiness?  After  how  many  years 
and  at  what  cost  of  life  and  treasure  was  the  Great 
Declaration  made  good ! 

No  one  who  reads  the  debates  of  the  Convention  of 
The  fail-  1787  can  fail  to  notice  that  the  friends  and 
ure  to  the  opponents  of  the  proposed  Constitution 

settle  T    .11  ,.  .         i    .  . ! 

these  divided  on  questions  involving  the  same 
ques-  principles  as  those  which  divided  the  Kevo- 

tions.  ,     ,       ^, 

lutionary  parties ;  nor  can  one  read  the  Con 
stitution  itself  without  perceiving  that  its  acceptance 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  145 

by  the  Convention  was  a  triumph  of  the  legitimate 
successors  of  the  Anti-Revolutionary  party  of  1775. 
"  It  was  not  even  proposed,"  says  Hildreth,1  "to  cur 
tail  the  appointing  power,  the  veto,  or  the  extensive 
authority  vested  generally  in  the  President,  nor  seri 
ously  to  limit  the  powers  of  Congress  or  the  jurisdic 
tion  of  the  Federal  Courts."  The  Constitution  failed 
to  receive  the  signatures  of  some  of  the  ablest  members 
of  the  Convention  ;  and  "  it  was  exceedingly  doubtful 
whether,  upon  a  fair  canvass,  a  majority  of  the  people, 
even  in  the  ratifying  States,  were  in  favor  of  it."  2  So 
dissatisfied  were  the  people,  not  only  with  the  Constitu 
tion,  but  also,  and  even  more,  with  what  was  omitted, 
that  its  adoption  was  accompanied  by  numerous  pro 
posed  amendments ;  only  two,  however,  of  those  relat 
ing  to  matters  mooted  at  the  Revolution  became  parts 
of  the  Constitution  —  those  prohibiting  the  quarter 
ing  of  troops  in  private  houses  and  the  issue  of  gen 
eral  warrants.  And  so  far  were  the  Revolutionary 
questions  from  being  settled  in  accordance  with  the 
results  of  that  event,  it  has  been  said  that  from  1789 
to  1860  they  caused  nearly  as  much  dissatisfaction 
with  the  general  government  in  the  States  south  of 
the  Potomac  as  the  policy  of  the  British  government 
caused  in  the  colonies  between  1763  and  1775 ;  and 
that  evidence  of  this  is  found  in  the  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  resolution,3  in  the  assault  on  the  judiciary 

1  History  of  the  United  States,  iv.  118.    In  November,  1787,  Elbridge 
Gerry  wrote  to  John  Wendell,  "I  think  (the  Constitution)  neither 
consistent  with  the  principles  of  the  Revolution  or  of  the  constitu 
tions  of  the  several  States." 

2  Hildreth,  ibid.  28. 

3  These  resolutions  expressed  the  sentiments  of  the  Republicans, 
who  claimed  to  represent  the  states-rights  party,  or  the  old  revolu 
tionary  party  of  Jefferson,  Samuel  Adams,  and  George  Clinton,  as  op- 


146  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

in  Jefferson's  administration,  and  in  the  dissatisfac 
tion  of  South  Carolina  with  the  tariff  in  1832,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  extent  to  which  such  problems  entered 
into  the  conflict  which  led  to  civil  war. 

The  war,  then,  did  not  settle  these  questions;  it 
merely  disposed  of  them  under  a  new  order  of  things, 
and  left  their  settlement  to  us  or  to  those  who  may 
come  after  us ;  and  it  may  be  that  the  late  Civil  War 
merely  placed  them  in  abeyance  for  the  second  time, 
and  that  nothing  but  their  final  settlement  on  just 
economic  grounds  will  cause  them  to  disappear  from 
American  politics. 

I  therefore  regard  the  period  between  1763  and 
1776  as  one  of  the  most  significant  in  our  history ; 
for  the  questions  then  rife  reach  back  to  and  are  in 
extricably  interwoven  with  the  history  of  each  colony 
from  its  first  planting ;  and,  reaching  forward  also, 
how  fully  they  have  entered  into  our  later  history  is 
known  to  every  intelligent  reader. 

A  clear  understanding  of  the  constitutional  ques 
tions  which  perplexed  the  colonists  of  the 
character  Revolution  depends  somewhat  upon  a  know- 
ofour  ledge  of  their  antecedent  history.  Ameri 
can  history  before  the  Revolution  is  neither 
romantic  nor  picturesque,  nor,  as  a  whole,  is  it  strik 
ing.  It  is  barren  of  incidents,  lacks  great  characters, 

posed  to  the  Federalists,  who  were  charged  with  entertaining  the  mon 
archical  principles  of  the  old  Tories  and,  by  the  forced  construction  of 
the  Constitution,  with  having  perverted  the  government,  and  with  hav 
ing  administered  it  on  principles  adverse  to  those  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence.  The  tendency  of  the  general  government  from  the 
beginning  undoubtedly  has  been  towards  consolidation  ;  and  if  the  re 
sults  of  the  late  Civil  War  may  be  regarded  as  an  expression  of  the  final 
judgment  of  the  people  as  to  the  constitutional  questions  involved,  it 
is  an  interesting  commentary  on  those  mooted  between  1763  and  1776 
—  though  in  no  respect  affecting  the  main  question  of  independence. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  147 

contributes  little  or  nothing  to  statesmanship,  war,  or 
policy,  and  still  less,  if  less  be  possible,  to  literature 
or  art.  The  glory  of  Wolfe  is  not  our  glory.  The 
foot  of  no  colonial  soldier  climbed  the  steeps  or  trod 
the  heights  behind  Quebec,  and  none  but  the  veteran 
troops  of  England  heard  the  triumphant  cry,  "  They 
run ! "  or  caught  the  hero's  parting  words,  "  I  die 
content."  And  if  we  have  nothing  to  show  save  the 
results  of  conflicts  with  miserable  Indian  tribes,  or 
the  not  very  creditable  military  and  naval  expeditions 
against  the  Canadians,  a  foe  vastly  inferior  in  number 
and  resources ;  or  of  civil  history  save  the  Antino- 
mian  controversy,  or  the  hanging  of  a  few  Quakers 
and  of  a  more  considerable  number  of  witches  —  or 
those  accounted  such,  —  acts  which  had  no  essential 
relation  to  the  soil  or  climate  of  the  country,  and  in  no 
respect  differentiated  its  people  or  their  history  from 
those  of  any  other  people,  I  think  we  might  close  the 
volume  without  loss  of  instruction  or  delight. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  our  history  is  unique  in  its 
origin,  isolated  in  its  progress,  and  is  the  best  expo 
nent  of  the  new  order  inaugurated  by  the  revival  of 
learning  and  the  Reformation,  because  it  rests  upon  a 
broader  human  basis  and  clearer  recognition  of  indi 
vidual  rights.  More  than  any  other  history  it  gives 
promise  to  the  hopes  of  man,  and  records  development 
under  exemplary  constitutional  forms  and  methods 
which  other  nations  appear  to  regard  with  interest. 

The  history  of  America,  unlike  that  of  most  nations, 
is  not  shrouded  in  the  mists  of  mythology  nor  in  the 
darkness  of  barbaric  ages.  From  the  beginning  it 
stands,  for  the  most  part,  in  the  clear  light  of  authentic 
facts.  It  traces  its  origin,  as  no  other  nation  can,  from 
public  documents,  such  as  land  patents,  incorporative 


148  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

charters,  proprietary  grants,  or  royal  commissions,  in 
the  interpretation  and  construction  of  which,  with  the 
included  facts,  may  be  found  all,  or  nearly  all,  that  is 
of  value.  In  these  documents  the  beginning  of  our 
essential  history  is  to  be  sought,  rather  than  in  the 
forests  of  Germany  or  in  the  fens  of  Lincolnshire; 
and  with  them  and  the  records  of  the  Board  of  Trade, 
royal  instructions,  assembly  journals,  and  Chalmers's 
Opinions,  and  with  little  other  aid,  any  one  of  his 
torical  insight  and  general  culture,  observant  of  the 
logic  of  events  and  well  acquainted  with  men,  their 
motives,  and  modes  of  bringing  to  pass  their  purposes, 
—  not  necessarily  a  jurist,  but  like  Hutchinson,  Ram 
say,  Trumbull,  and  Belknap,  with  clear  conceptions 
of  organic  and  municipal  law,  —  could  write  the  his 
tory  of  the  thirteen  colonies  in  his  closet. 

Another  characteristic  circumstance  of  our  history 
is  its  isolation.  Before  the  war  of  1755  it  had,  so  far 
as  I  can  perceive,  no  essential  dependence  upon  Euro 
pean  affairs  —  not  even  those  of  England ;  certainly 
none  which  changed  the  direction  or  rate  of  progress 
which  the  people  were  making  under  influences  purely 
American.  This  is  not  the  view  taken  by  the  historian 
of  the  United  States  or  by  the  historian  of  New  Eng 
land  ;  and  I  am  aware  how  much  their  histories  gain 
in  interest  by  being  projected  on  a  background  in 
which  we  see  the  movements  of  armies  and  the  pa 
geantry  of  kings  and  courts.1 

Original  tendencies  of  the  race  and  acquired  habits 

1  Without  doubt,  the  colonies  were  a  factor  in  European  politics ; 
but  how  far  the  converse  is  true  is  not  so  clear.  The  essential  history 
of  the  colonies  is  that  of  their  development ;  and  the  historian  may 
disregard,  or  pass  lightly  over,  whatever  did  not  materially  affect  that 
development.  Perhaps  the  French  war  of  1755,  which  resulted  in  the 
overthrow  of  the  French  power  in  America,  presents  the  strongest  case 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  149 

and  impulses  were  transmitted  in  both  of  its  branches, 
and  doubtless  influenced  the  emigrants  in  their  new 

of  a  colonial  war  growing  out  of  European  complications ;  and  yet, 
with  regard  even  to  this  war,  it  is  a  question  how  far  it  affected  the 
development  of  the  colonies  —  that  is,  in  consequence  of  that  war  and 
its  result,  how  was  their  subsequent  history  different  from  what  it 
would  have  been  had  the  war  never  taken  place  or  had  the  result  been 
different  ?  But  see  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  ser.  4,  iv.  370. 
The  answer  must  be  uncertain,  yet  there  are  facts  which  lead  to  the 
conjecture  that  the  result  made,  or  had  it  been  different  would  have 
made,  no  essential  difference. 

Wolfe's  success  at  Quebec  is  often  spoken  of  as  having-  changed  the 
history  of  the  French  and  English  colonies.  It  was  indeed  a  splendid 
achievement  of  British  arms ;  but  Creasy  wisely  counted  the  battle  of 
Saratoga,  not  that  at  Quebec,  among  the  "  Fifteen  Decisive  Battles  of 
the  World." 

Nor  was  the  immediate  effect  upon  Canada  itself  very  great.  Eleven 
years  later,  the  Quebec  Act  of  1774  was  a  politic,  if  not  a  necessary, 
recognition  of  the  status  quo;  and  it  is  worth  considering  how  far, 
even  to  this  day,  those  circumstances  and  conditions  which  accelerate 
or  retard  the  prosperity  of  a  people  were  changed  by  the  war.  (See 
an  instructive  paper,  by  John  George  Bourinot,  LL.  D.,  of  Ottawa,  in 
the  Scottish  Review  for  April,  1887.) 

It  may  be  conceded  that  the  reduction  of  Canada  precipitated  the 
American  Revolution.  It  is  not  claimed,  I  think,  that  it  caused  that 
event.  How,  and  to  what  degree,  then,  did  it  hasten  it  ?  It  is  usually 
said  that  after  the  peace  of  1763  the  British  colonies,  no  longer  exposed 
to  hostile  inroads  of  the  French  and  Indian  allies,  were  better  able  to 
resist  the  unpropitious  legislation  of  Great  Britain. 

This  aspect  of  the  case  was  fully  discussed  by  English  and  colonial 
statesmen,  among  whom  was  Franklin ;  and  the  English  negotiators 
of  the  treaty  of  1763  were  in  doubt  whether  they  ought  to  retain  Can 
ada  as  one  of  the  results  of  the  war  or  give  it  up  for  Guadeloupe ;  and 
it  would  seem  that  they  made  a  great  political  mistake  in  their  deci 
sion,  unless  we  overestimate  the  effect  of  the  reduction  of  Canada  upon 
our  subsequent  history. 

Let  us  suppose  that  the  French  had  retained  Canada.  Would  that 
fact  have  wiped  out  the  enormous  debt  incurred  by  its  conquest  or 
have  prevented  its  increase  for  the  defense  of  the  colonies ;  or  would 
the  colonies,  thwarted  in  their  wishes,  have  become  enamored  of  stamp 
acts,  navigation  laws,  or  Townshend's  revenue  measures  ? 

Wolfe's  victory  did  not  precipitate,  or  make  more  exigent  than  his 
defeat  would  have  done,  any  of  those  questions  which  had  been  open 


150  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

home  under  unwonted  circumstances  ;  but  the  colo 
nists  were  far  from  the  complications  of  European  pol 
itics,  and  when  histories  so  dissimilar  are  treated  in 
relation,  and  with  due  regard  to  historical  perspective, 
American  history  loses  its  distinctive  characteristics 
and  much  of  its  value.  I  prefer,  therefore,  to  regard 
it,  as  I  believe  it  to  be,  the  history  of  Englishmen 
more  or  less  imbued  with  the  principles  of  the  Re 
formation  and  of  the  Petition  of  Right,  who  cut  them 
selves  loose  from  Europe,  with  its  old  institutions  and 
associations,  and  without  pattern,  or  assistance,  or 
very  effective  interference  —  though  that  was  often 
threatened  —  undertook  on  bare  creation,  to  develop 

for  more  than  a  hundred  years,  and  finally  brought  on  the  war.  The 
debt,  as  has  been  said,  remained  to  be  paid ;  nor  could  it  be  paid,  or 
even  remain  stationary,  except  by  subjecting  the  colonies  to  an  impe 
rial  policy,  involving  the  adoption  of  essentially  the  same  measures  as 
those  which  led  to  rebellion. 

Why,  under  such  circumstances,  would  they  have  been  less  willing 
to  seek  relief  in  independence,  or  the  French  less  willing  to  incite  them 
to  rebellion,  on  occasion ;  and  when  the  colonists  were  brought  to  the 
contemplation  of  that,  as  in  time  they  must  have  been,  could  they  have 
been  blind  to  the  consideration  how  much  more  effective  French  assist 
ance  would  be  (than  it  really  was  under  other  circumstances)  when 
that  power  held  the  St.  Lawrence  and  the  northern  approaches  to  Lake 
Champlain  ?  The  northern  campaigns  of  1775-6  and  1777,  to  say 
nothing  of  Sullivan's  expedition  of  1778,  would  have  been  eliminated, 
and  the  concentration  of  colonial  energies  and  resources  in  the  middle 
and  southern  colonies  have  thus  been  permitted.  In  regard  to  this 
matter,  see  Franklin's  Familiar  Letters,  Sparks's  edition,  247,  266. 

The  real  contest  between  England  and  France  in  which  the  colonies, 
as  a  whole,  were  interested,  was  for  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi,  not 
the  St.  Lawrence  ;  and  had  the  attack  on  the  left  flank  of  the  French 
at  Quebec  failed,  it  would  by  no  means  have  prevented,  or  more  than 
temporarily  delayed,  one  on  the  French  centre,  from  a  base  of  the 
Atlantic,  protected  by  the  naval  power  of  England.  A  war  for  the 
great  watercourses  and  the  fertile  lands  on  their  banks  would  have 
followed,  and  with  the  result  usual  in  the  contests  for  empire  between 
England  and  France.  The  French  centre  once  broken,  New  Orleans 
and  Quebec  would  have  been  untenable. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  151 

thirteen  autonomous  states  out  of  as  many  land  com 
panies.  No  doubt  when  America  was  discovered  she 
parted  company  with  the  undetermined  ages  in  their 
sluggish  movement  and  cast  off  into  the  rapid  stream 
of  historic  time  ;  but  she  was  far  from  the  centre  of 
the  current,  and  in  a  new  world  soon  formed  one  for 
herself. 

Such,  as  it  appears  to  me,  has  been  the  isolation  and 
direct  development  of  the  independent  governments  of 
America  from  colonial  charters  or  their  equivalents. 
It  was  self -development,  —  in  New  England  primarily 
on  the  basis  of  ecclesiastical  independency  closely  in 
terwoven  with  economic  independency,  which  out  of 
New  England  was  the  leading  motive ;  and  its  history 
gains  in  interest  and  value  as  it  reaches  that  point 
when  acts  of  incorporation  and  royal  commissions 
ceased  to  be  such,  and  became  potentially  the  basis  of 
governments  proper,  agreeably  to  the  laws  of  growth, 
usage,  and  necessity  in  a  land  remote  from  the  old 
world  and  having  little  connection  with  it.1 

With  this  conception  of  the  origin  and  historical 
and   political   significance  of   the  questions    some 
which  were  rife  between  1763  and  1776,  I    tuSonai 
pass  to  their  relation  to  the  American  Revo-    ques- 

i    ,.  tions 

lution.  exam. 

Jefferson,  in  his  declaration  to  the  world    ined- 
of  the  causes  which  justified  the  assertion  of  colonial 
independence,  has  given  singular  prominence  to   the 

1  A  signal  interference  by  the  home  government  with  the  colonies 
was  the  revocation  of  the  Massachusetts  charter  in  1684,  followed  by 
the  Dudley- Andros  interregnum,  and  that  by  the  second  charter ;  but 
the  affair,  neither  in  detail  nor  in  mass,  deflected  the  history  of  that 
colony  by  a  hair's  breadth  from  the  old  line  of  development  ;  and  we 
look  in  vain  for  the  scar  of  the  wound  which  Charles  II.  in  his  anger 
inflicted  on  the  body  politic. 


152  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

exercise  of  the  king's  prerogatives ;  and  his  arraign 
ment  of  him  at  the  bar  of  public  opinion  seems  like  a 
personal  assault.  Jefferson  knew,  and  no  one  knew 
better,  that  some  of  the  real  causes  which  warranted 
the  Declaration,  such  as  the  Navigation  Acts  and  the 
ecclesiastical  laws  in  Virginia,  had  existed  a  hundred 
years  before  George  III.  began  to  reign ;  and  that 
for  the  later  revenue  measures  he  had  only  a  divided 
responsibility,  such  as  arose  from  his  assent  to  parlia 
mentary  acts  the  veto  of  which  might  have  cost  him 
dear.1  In  Mr.  Webster's  "  Eulogy  on  Adams  and 
Jefferson  "  will  be  found  the  reasons  which  probably 
influenced  Jefferson  in  making  the  king  the  chief 
offender.  "  The  best  of  kings,"  as  James  Otis  and 
Samuel  Adams  somewhat  profusely,  and  perhaps  not 

1  As  to  the  king's  constitutional  responsibility  nothing1  need  be  said, 
for  he,  like  the  sovereign  people,  can  do  no  wrong ;  but  with  this  dif 
ference,  that  if  he  does,  he  can  be  decapitated  :  with  the  other,  it  is  not 
so !  As  to  his  moral  responsibility  for  acts  done  in  his  name,  it  should 
be  considered  that  his  connection  with  them  was  often  merely  nomi 
nal.  An  appeal  from  the  decision  of  a  colonial  court  to  the  king  in 
his  bench  was  an  appeal  to  the  judges  of  the  highest  English  court. 
And  so  an  appeal  to  the  king  in  his  council  was  an  appeal  to  the  min 
istry.  We  read  that  the  king  settled  the  boundaries  between  pro 
vinces,  or  vetoed  their  laws,  or  gave  instructions  to  governors,  or  issued 
his  royal  commission  ;  but  so  far  were  these  acts  from  being  the  per 
sonal  acts  of  the  king,  that  the  probability  is  that  he  knew  little  about 
them,  except  as  he  was  informed  by  the  secretary  for  the  colonies  of 
what  had  been  settled  by  the  ministers ;  and  that  both  he  and  they, 
in  these  cases,  acted  on  the  advice  of  the  great  law  officers,  and  fol 
lowed  precedents  from  which  neither  could  safely  depart. 

The  impersonal  nature  of  the  prerogative  is  shown  by  the  fact  that 
though  the  government  of  New  Hampshire  between  1679  and  1774 
with  a  short  interregnum  was  based  on  the  king's  commission,  appar 
ently  the  written  evidence  of  his  personal  will  and  revocable  at  his 
pleasure,  yet  I  doubt  if  any  instance  can  be  found  where,  on  account 
of  royal  dissatisfaction  —  which  means  the  dissatisfaction  of  the  min 
istry  —  the  tenor  of  his  commission  was  changed.  Though  theoreti 
cally  otherwise,  it  was  as  permanent  as  a  royal  charter. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  153 

with  entire  sincerity,  were  in  the  habit  of  calling 
him,  was  in  no  respect  the  worst  of  kings  ;  and  when 
free  from  the  cruel  malady  which  made  hapless  his 
later  years,  he  was  tyrannical  neither  in  his  political 
nor  in  his  personal  conduct ; l  nor  was  he  without 
solicitous  regard  for  the  welfare  of  his  American 
subjects.  It  was  his  paramount  purpose,  as  it  was 
Jackson's  and  Lincoln's  under  circumstances  not  dis 
similar,  to  preserve  the  integrity  of  his  empire ;  and 
in  this  he  exhibited  two  qualities  —  courage  and  deci 
sion  —  which  stood  for  so  much  with  the  most  popular 
president  of  the  United  States  when,  in  1832,  their 
unity  was  threatened  by  a  dissatisfied  State. 

Though  Jefferson  regarded  with  disfavor  those  who 
exercised  autocratic  powers  —  especially  if  heredi 
tary —  until  he  came  to  exercise  them  himself,  he 
probably  had  no  personal  animosity  towards  the  king, 
but  spoke  harshly  of  him  as  he  did,  and  regardless  of 
facts,  from  political  necessity.  The  act  which  he  un 
dertook  to  justify  before  the  world  was  renunciation 
of  allegiance  to  the  king  to  whom,  if  to  any  one,  it 
was  due,  —  not  to  the  ministry,  nor  to  Parliament, 
nor  to  the  British  people.2  Therefore  he  sought 
something  in  his  conduct  which  would  warrant  the 

1  So  thought  John  Adams.     See   his  Letter  to  Timothy  Pickering, 
1822. 

2  The  operative  act  which  severed  the  colonies  from  the  crown  was 
Lee's  resolution  of  June  7,  1776,  passed  by  Congress  on  July  2,  and 
was  in  these  words :  "  Resolved,  That  these  United  Colonies  are,  and  of 
right  ought  to  be,  free  and  independent  States,  that  they  are  absolved 
from  all  allegiance  to  the  British  Crown,  and  that  all  political  connection 
between  them  and  the  State  of  Great  Britain  is,  and  ought  to  be,  to 
tally  dissolved."     And  as  the  Declaration  was  merely  an  announce 
ment  to  the  world,  on  the  4th  of  July,  of  what  had  been  enacted  on 
the  2d,  Jefferson  was  obliged  to  follow  Lee's  resolution.     Jefferson, 
in  his  Autobiography  (p.  12),  gives  a  re'sume'  of  the  opinions  of  such 


154  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

rupture  of  the  empire.  None  of  the  real  grievances, 
such  as  the  enforcement  of  the  Navigation  Laws,1  the 
revenue  measures,  or  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  would  serve 
his  purpose,  because,  apart  from  the  constitutional 
maxim  that  all  the  king's  public  acts  were  done  under 
the  advice  of  his  ministers,  who  were  alone  responsi 
ble  for  them,  the  king,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  instigated 
none  of  those  measures,  and,  as  the  veto  power  was 
then  regarded,  he  could  not  have  withheld  his  assent 
to  them  without  endangering  his  crown. 

But  every  exercise  of  the  prerogative^  however  far 
from  the  fact)  ostensibly  as  well  as  constitutionally  ^ 
was  the  sole  act  of  the  king,  for  which  he  was  re- 
men  as  John  Adams,  Lee  and  Wythe,  who  favored  the  passage  of 
the  Resolution  of  Independence,  to  the  effect  that,  "  as  to  the  people 
or  Parliament,  of  England,  we  had  always  been  independent  of  them, 
their  restraints  on  our  trade  deriving  efficacy  from  our  acquiescence 
only,  and  not  from  any  rights  they  possessed  of  impairing  them,  and  so 
far,  our  connection  with  them  had  been  federal  only,  and  was  now 
dissolved  by  the  commencement  of  hostilities  : 

"  That,  as  to  the  king,  we  had  been  bound  to  him  by  allegiance,  but 
that  this  bond  was  now  dissolved "  by  certain  acts  more  fully  set 
forth  by  Jefferson  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  also  in 
the  preamble  to  the  new  constitution  of  Virginia  which  Jefferson 
had  drawn. — Randall's  Jefferson,  i.  195. 

The  Declaration,  as  drafted  by  Jefferson,  was  no  sudden,  no  novel 
product.  He  had  been  over  the  whole  subject,  and  was  thoroughly 
master  of  it,  as  appears  from  the  draft  of  instructions  which  he  pre 
pared  for  the  delegates  to  the  Congress  of  1774  (Autobiography, 
i.  122),  which,  though  not  fully  accepted,  afterwards  appeared  in 
A  Summary  View  of  the  Rights  of  British  America. 

1  "I  think  it  [the  act  of  navigation],  if  uncompensated,  to  be  a 
condition  of  as  rigorous  servitude  as  man  can  be  subject  to."  "  They 
found,  under  the  construction  and  execution  then  used,  the  act  no 
longer  tying  but  actually  strangling  them."  —  Burke's  Speech  on 
American  Taxation. 

"  I  judge  so  from  the  system  of  monopoly  and  exclusion  which 
governs  all  your  political  writers  upon  commerce,  except  Mr.  Adam 
Smith  and  Dean  Tucker  —  a  system  which  is  the  true  prime  cause  of 
your  separation  from  your  colonies"  —  Turgot  to  Dr.  Price,  1778. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  155 

sponsible.  Therefore  Jefferson  attacked  him  in  an  in 
dictment  consisting,  as  originally  drawn,  of  twenty 
articles,  several  of  which  contained  two  or  more  speci 
fications.  In  nineteen  of  these  he  is  made  sole  cul 
prit  ;  and  in  one,  the  thirteenth  in  order,  he  is  associ 
ated  with  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament ;  seven  relate 
to  the  exercise  of  the  veto  power  in  one  form  or  an 
other  ;  two,  to  the  appointment,  tenure,  and  pay  of 
the  judges ;  one,  to  the  increase  of  revenue  officers, 
and  seven,  to  the  abuse  of  his  powers  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy. 

Had  the  king  been  arraigned  on  these  charges 
before  a  court  of  justice,  undoubtedly  by  advice  of 
counsel  he  would  have  demurred  to  the  bill,  which,  I 
hardly  need  say,  means  that  admitting  the  facts  to  be 
as  set  forth,  still  he  ought  not  to  answer,  since  the  acts 
complained  of  were  done  in  the  exercise  of  his  consti 
tutional  prerogatives. 

The  charge,  for  example,  that  "  he  has  refused  his 
assent  to  laws  the  most  wholesome  and  necessary  for 
the  public  good,"  is,  on  constitutional  grounds,  with 
out  support ;  for  it  was  not  only  his  prerogative  right 
so  to  refuse,  but  it  was  a  right  expressly  reserved, 
with  two  or  three  exceptions,  in  the  very  instruments 
to  which  the  colonies  owed  their  existence,  and  which 
they  had  assented  to  by  accepting  them.  Jefferson 
would  not  have  helped  his  case,  as  matter  of  law,  by 
insisting  that  it  was  the  abuse,  not  the  exercise,  of  the 
powers  of  which  he  complained ;  for  of  that  the  king 
was  sole  judge. 

Looking  at  the  case,  therefore,  from  the  constitu 
tional  point  of  view,  as  Chalmers  and  the  Tories  looked 
at  it,  judgment  must  have  been  for  the  king.  That 
is,  by  the  British  constitution  the  king  stood  on  the 


156  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

same  ground  as  that  on  which  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  the  governors  of  most  of  the  states, 
and  the  mayors  of  many  cities  stand  when  they  veto 
legislative  acts  ;  and  no  more  than  they  are  was  the 
king  justly  liable  to  impeachment  therefor. 

By  fiction  of  the  British  constitution  the  king  sat 
in  person  in  his  colonial  courts,  as  well  as  in  those 
within  the  realm ;  and  when  he  required  substitutes, 
as  well  he  might,  to  perform  this  ubiquitous  and  ex;- 
acting  service,  he  claimed  the  right  accorded  by  the 
constitution,  to  say  by  whom,  and  on  what  tenure, 
and  with  what  pay  these  vicarious  services  should  be 
rendered.  The  pay  of  the  judges  by  the  king  was  the 
feature  most  obnoxious  to  the  colonists.  They  cared 
less  who  was  judge,  or  how  long  he  held  the  office,  so 
long  as  they  could  bring  him  to  terms,  as  they  often 
did,  or  even  drive  him  from  the  bench,  by  diminish 
ing  or  withholding  his  salary.  The  result  was  that 
when  the  king  sued  in  his  own  courts  for  his  revenues 
or  for  trespasses  on  the  timber  land  of  the  crown  he 
was  generally  cast  in  his  suit.  This  question  the  Re- 
volution  temporarily  adjusted  without  settling.  It  was 
left  to  us,  and  we  are  in  doubt ;  for  there  are  intelli 
gent  people  who  take  the  Revolutionary  ground,  as 
opposed  to  the  Tory  ground  of  that  period  which  we 
have  generally  adopted,  that  the  judiciary,  not  less 
than  other  departments  of  the  government,  ought  to 
depend  upon  the  popular  voice  for  their  election,  pay, 
and  tenure  of  office. 

The  king,  like  the  president  of  the  United  States, 
by  his  prerogative  was  commander-in-chief  of  military 
and  naval  forces  of  his  empire,  and  in  peace  as  well 
as  in  war  determined  their  movements,  posts,  and 
quarters.  Regarded  then  as  a  constitutional  question, 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  157 

Jefferson's  complaint  on  this  head  amounts  to  no 
more  than  this :  that  George  III.,  though  he  probably 
had  little  to  do  with  it,  directed  the  forces  in  the  colo 
nies  for  purposes  and  in  a  manner  which  was  not 
approved  of  by  the  colonists.  But  that  is  seldom  the 
case  with  those  whom  the  government  undertakes  to 
reduce  to  subjection.  Certainly  it  was  not  so  in  the 
late  Civil  War,  in  which  both  combatants  made  loud 
and  doubtless  just  complaints  against  each  other  of 
inhumanity  and  disregard  of  the  laws  of  war ;  and 
Congress  and  the  press  and  many  very  wise  people 
were  more  willing  to  take  command  of  the  army  than 
to  allow  the  constitutional  authorities  the  exercise  of 
that  function. 

Tory  writers  both  at  home  and  abroad  sneered  at 
Jefferson's  constitutional  notions.  Not  that  Jefferson 
did  not  know  the  constitution  ;  few  knew  it  better. 
His  difficulty  was  that  in  armed  rebellion  he  was 
obliged  to  fight  the  battle  before  the  world,  not  as  a 
rebel,  but  as  one  contending  for  the  rights  of  the  colo 
nists  under  the  constitution,  which,  as  he  claimed,  had 
been  invaded  by  the  sovereign.  On  that  ground  his 
task  was  severe  —  perhaps  beyond  his  strength. 

If  his  situation   had  allowed,  Jefferson   doubtless 

would  have   said   what  certainly  was  true, 

.LI         .,1       i  •  i  i    •  f    i  •  •    •   ,  The  real 

that  the  king,    by  advice  ot   his   ministers    position 

and  by  virtue  of  his  prerogatives  and  as  a 
coordinate  branch  of  the  legislature,  had 
exercised  his  constitutional  powers  adversely  to  the 
economic  interests  of  his  colonial  subjects ;  and  that 
they,  having  petitioned  and  remonstrated  without 
redress,  were  compelled  to  sever  those  relations  which 
formed  the  basis  of  their  allegiance  to  him  and  of  his 
power  over  the  colonies.  But  that  was  revolution  ! 


158  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

This  was  the  real  position  of  the  colonists,  and  in 
it  was  the  justice  and  strength  of  their  cause ;  and  we 
may  speculate  whether  they  might  not  have  better 
taken  it  at  the  outset,  since  to  that  position  have 
gradually  come  the  wise  and  dispassionate  thinkers  of 
both  countries  in  the  present  generation. 

They  followed  English  precedents,  however,  in  the 
course  they  adopted ;  for  I  believe  the  opinion  is 
gaining  ground,  adversely  to  Hallam  and  some  other 
English  constitutionalists,  that  in  many,  perhaps  most 
cases,  and  notably  in  the  case  of  ship-money,  Charles 
I.  was  within  his  strict  constitutional  prerogatives.1 
Nevertheless,  the  people  rebelled  and  slew  him  as  a 
tyrant  who  claimed  and  exercised  unconstitutional 
powers,  when  his  real  offense  was  the  exercise  of  con 
stitutional  powers  without  any  warranting  necessity.2 

Jefferson  was  right  in  his  main  purpose ;  but  his 
indictment  of  George  III.  is  perhaps  the  only  one 
ever  drawn  in  which  the  real  offense  is  not  even  men 
tioned,  and  where  an  innocent  party  was  vicariously 
substituted  for  the  real  offender ! 

Nevertheless,  Jefferson's  arraignment  of  the  prero= 
gatives  in  the  person  of  the  king  did  little  or  nothing 
for  their  settlement,  since  they  remain,  even  with  aug 
mented  force,  under  the  new  order  as  under  the  old. 
Prerogatives  in  a  monarchy  are  the  divine  rights 

1  Hall's  Customs  of  England,  i.  141, 145. 

2  Where  great  principles  or  even  great  interests  are  at  stake,  con 
stitutional  guaranties  or  restrictions  are  of  little  avail.     How  little 
some  of  us  know,  who  had  no  doubt  in  respect  to  the  guaranties  of 
chattel  slavery,  but,  nevertheless,  deliberately  disregarded  them,  and 
gloried  in  doing  so  ;  while  many  attested  their  sincerity  by  the  sacri 
fice  of  their  lives.     And  so,  as  we   look  at  it,  and  as  I  think  the 
world,  including  Great  Britain,  now  looks  at  it,  Jefferson  was  right 
in  his  main  purpose  ;  and  if,  on  strictly  constitutional  grounds,  he 
was  wrong,  like  Caesar,  "  he  was  wrong  in  just  cause." 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  159 

of  the  sovereign  king ;  under  a  democracy,  the  divine 
rights  of  the  sovereign  people.     This  is  the    Unsatis_ 
theory.      Practically,  under  both  forms   of    factory 

,,  ?  -\         results 

government,  they  are  grants  ot  power   by    ofthe 
the  people  to  their  rulers  ;  and  if  the  king's    contro- 
prerogatives  were   justly  obnoxious   to  the 
colonists,  why  did  they,  not  many  years  after,  invest 
the  President  with  power  to  appoint  cabinet  officers, 
foreign  ambassadors,  judges,  and  the  whole  civil  and 
military  service  for  a  people  since  become  sixty  mil 
lions  ?  l     This  is  one  of  the  questions  which  the  Revo 
lution  did  not  settle,  and  it  has  been  reopened  again 
and  again,  with  a  persistency  which  causes  solicitude 
in  some  quarters  as  to  the  result,  especially  in  respect 
to  the  judiciary. 

Jefferson  smote  the  claim  of  parliamentary  supre 
macy  squarely  in  the  face.  He  denied  that  Parlia 
ment  had  any  rightful  authority  over  the  colonies ; 
and  asserted  that  the  exercise  of  such  jurisdiction  was 
foreign  to  our  constitution,  unacknowledged  by  our 
laws,  and  that  all  its  acts  were  usurpations.  This 
opinion  he  had  expressed  before  the  Revolution,  and 
Wy the  agreed  with  him ;  but  as  he  said,  he  could  find 
no  one  else  who  did.  No  wonder  ;  for  the  facts  were 
against  them.  In  several  instances  and  on  various 
subjects  Parliament  had  legislated  for  the  colonies 
with  their  assent,  and  even  at  their  request.  If  Jef 
ferson  accepted  the  original  doctrine  that  the  colonies 
were  the  king's  colonies,  subject  to  his  direction  to 
the  exclusion  of  all  other,  his  position  is  intelligible. 
Franklin  had  expressed  similar  opinions  ;  but  both 
regarded  monarchical  power  when  opposed  to  popular 

1  See  Letter  of  John  Adams  to  Roger  Sherman  in  Boutell's  Life 
of  Sherman,  315. 


160  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

rights  with  aversion,  and  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the 
conviction  that  their  utterances  were  merely  political. 
Jefferson's  theory  of  the  relations  of  the  colonists 
to  the  crown  was  as  old  as  the  colonies  themselves, 
and  grew  out  of  the  public  law  of  Europe  in  the  fif 
teenth  century  ;  by  that  theory  the  king  made  laws 
for  them,  if  royal  provinces,  by  the  terms  of  his  com 
missions  to  their  governors,  and  he  regulated  all  of 
them  by  the  exercise  of  his  prerogatives.  Neverthe 
less,  from  an  early  period  the  prerogatives  had  been 
invaded  by  Parliament,  so  that  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  they  were  in  such  doubt  that  statesmen 
might  well  differ  as  to  the  rights  of  Parliament  to  tax 
the  colonies.  They  claimed  exemption  by  arguments 
to  which  Chatham  and  Camden  gave  assent,  and 
sometimes  for  reasons  which  illustrated  the  self-com 
placency  of  the  true  Briton  and  all  of  his  descendants, 
especially  in  Massachusetts. l 

1  That  people,  says  Mauduit  (Hutchinson's  Letters,  59,  2d  ed.,  1774), 
pleaded  the  charter  of  1691,  in  which  it  was  provided  that  they 
should  have  and  enjoy  all  liberties  and  immunities  of  free  and  nat 
ural  subjects,  within  any  of  the  king's  dominions,  his  heirs,  and  suc 
cessors,  to  all  intents,  constructions,  and  purposes  whatsoever,  as  if  they 
and  every  of  them  were  born  within  his  realm  of  England.  The 
English  subjects  within  the  realm,  they  said,  "  have  a  right  to  choose 
representatives  for  themselves,  and  are  governed  only  by  acts  of  Par 
liament  ;  under  our  charter,  therefore,  we  have  the  same  rights  as  the 
people  of  England  have  to  choose  our  representatives,  and  to  be  gov 
erned  only  by  the  laws  made  by  our  assemblies  in  which  alone  we  are 
represented  ;  and  the  Parliament  of  England  has  nothing  to  do  with 
us."  This  is  ingenious.  It  is  also  very  English  and  very  American. 
Both  peoples  seem  to  think  that  there  are  certain  rights  which  Eng 
lishmen  and  their  descendants  as  such,  distinguished  from  French 
men,  Spaniards,  or  Dutchmen,  for  example,  carry  with  them  into  all 
parts  of  the  world,  to  be  pleaded  there  against  local  jurisdiction. 
"  I  am  a  Roman  citizen,"  exclaimed  Paul  in  a  country  remote  from 
Rome,  but  subject  to  its  laws.  "  I  am  an  Englishman,"  exclaims  one 
who  travels  in  foreign  parts  where  English  law  does  not  prevail,  and 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  161 

The  dispute  was  mainly  one  of  point  of  view.     If 
the  colonists  were  without  the  realm,  and    The 
merely  the  king's  subjects,  as  was  their  re-    British 
lation  by  constitutional  theory  at  least,  par-    ^y 
liamentary   legislation   affecting   them   was    point  of 
usurpation  ;  but  if  they  were  within  the  em 
pire,  which  was  questioned  argumentatively  by  the  col 
onists,  though  that  was  the  opinion  in  England,  and 
if  they  were  entitled  to  the  privileges  of  the  British 
constitution,  and  subject  to  its  burdens  with  all  the 
exceptions   to   its   general    provisions   and   frequent 
departures  from  its   principles,  then  the  rights  and 
duties  of  the  colonists,  as  of  those  within  the  four 
seas,  were   determined   by  precedents,  judicial  deci 
sions,  and  opinions  of  the   high  officers  of  the  law. 
This,  of  course,  was  the  legal  and  constitutional  view 
of  the  matter ;  and  had   it   prevailed,  the   colonists 
were  as  much  bound  by  the  king's  prerogatives  and 
parliamentary  proceedings  as  were  the  home  subjects, 
five   sixths   of    whom,   notwithstanding    the   general 
maxim  that  representation  and  taxation  are  correla 
tive  rights  and  burdens,  had  no  effectual  participation 
in  their  own   government,   and   least   of   all  in  the 
power  by  which  they  were  taxed. 

This  was  the  opinion  of  Mansfield,  and  finally  of 
Camden,  and  it  was  supported  by  arguments  of  such 

expects  his  claim  to  be  allowed.  The  real  meaning  of  the  charter 
was,  that  any  citizen  of  Massachusetts  going  to  England  or  Jamaica, 
or  to  any  other  of  the  king's  dominions,  should  have  the  same  rights 
as  though  he  were  born  in  England ;  but  it  did  not  mean  that  in 
Massachusetts  or  Jamaica  he  should  have  the  rights,  general  or 
local,  which  he  might  have  and  enjoy  in  England.  Such  has  been 
the  interpretation  given  to  a  provision  in  the  fourth  article  of  the 
Articles  of  Confederation  similar  to  that  in  the  Massachusetts  char 
ter. 


162  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

weight  that  some  of  the  British  liberals  1  were  forced 
implicitly  to  acknowledge  its  legal  validity.2 

1  Burke's  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.      ( Works,  Little  &  Brown 
ed.,  1839,  ii.  48.) 

2  In  1765  Camden  said  that  Parliament  had  no  right  to  tax  the 
colonies  ;  in  1767  he  affirmed  that  right,  and  accounted  for  his  change 
of  opinion  by  the  Declaratory  Act  which  accompanied  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act.     We  who    live  under   a  written  constitution  which 
divides  and  apportions  the  powers  of  government,  and  defines  rights 
and  duties  with  exactness  of  phrase,  have  difficulty  in  understanding 
how  the  British  constitution  can  be  changed  in  an  hour  without  re 
ference  to  the  will   of  the  people.     But  a  glance  at  our  own  history 
makes  it  quite  clear.     For  example  :   Nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  designed,  by  the  machinery  of  an 
electoral  college,  to  remove  the  election  of  the  President  and  Vice- 
President   as   far  as  possible   from   popular   influence ;  and  yet  the 
exercise  of  the  power  lodged  in  the  college,  according  to  constitutional 
provision  and  intent,  would  at  any  time  since  the  adoption  of  the  Con 
stitution  have  produced  a  revolution ! 

Again :  more  than  half  of  the  present  territory  of  the  United 
States  was  acquired  by  a  purchase  not  authorized  by  the  Constitution, 
as  Jefferson,  who  consummated  it,  admitted  j  but  the  precedent  once 
set,  not  even  by  the  representatives  of  the  people  in  Congress,  but  by 
an  usurpation  of  power  by  the  executive,  it  virtually  became  part  of 
the  Constitution,  and  without  scruple  has  been  followed  by  other  ac 
quisitions  by  purchase,  by  conquest,  by  treaty,  and  by  joint  resolution. 

I  say  nothing  of  the  extension  and  modification  of  the  Constitution 
by  judicial  construction  which  so  alarmed  and  disgusted  Jefferson, 
and  only  allude  to  the  high  authority  (Lodge's  Webster,  176), 
which  admits  that  the  validity  of  Mr.  Webster's  opinions  in  1830 
respecting  nullification  rests  upon  what  the  Constitution  had  become 
at  that  time  rather  than  upon  the  intent  of  its  framers  in  1787.  See 
ing  then  the  potency  of  precedent  under  a  democracy  as  well  as 
under  a  monarchy,  and  in  the  case  of  a  written  constitution  by  its 
terms  changeable  only  by  formal  amendments,  I  can  listen  with  re 
spect,  even  if  I  do  not  assent,  to  the  powerful  reasoning  of  Mansfield 
that  the  colonies,  especially  after  the  Declaratory  Act  of  1766,  were 
subject  to  parliamentary  authority  in  all  cases  whatsoever. 

"  Constitutional  difficulties  never  will  stand  in  the  way  of  a  major 
ity.  .  .  .  Even  in  so  select  a  body  as  the  Senate  of  the  United  States, 
a  mere  variation  of  phrase  will  contrive  a  loop-hole  to  escape  from 
the  most  bare-faced  usurpation  of  power."  John  Quincy  Adams's 
Diary,  i.  417. 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  163 

Nevertheless,  this  is  the  British  view.     There  was 
also  an  American  view  which  the  Whigs  had 
a  clear  right  to  take,  as  they  did  when  they    Whig 
questioned  whether  the  British  construction,    P°int  of 
with  the  Declaratory  Act  of  1766,  had  been 
acquiesced  in  by  the  colonists  so  as  to  give  to  it  the 
force  of  constitutional  law  binding  on  them  in  their 
relations  to  the  mother  country. 

There    is   also   an   entirely   different    view   which 
acknowledges   the   force   of   precedent   and    johll 
usaore,  and  which    seems   to  me   conclusive    Adams's 

view. 

so  far  as  relates  to  the  right  of  Parliament 
directly  to  tax  the  colonies.  It  is  that  presented  in 
the  fourth  article  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights  by  the 
Congress  of  1774,  drawn  by  John  Adams,  and  claims 
in  substance  the  existence  of  colonial  constitutions 
as  well  as  of  the  British  constitution,  and  that  the 
former  as  well  as  the  latter  were  the  results  of 
growth,  development,  usage,  and  precedent ;  and  that 
by  these  constitutions  the  power  of  Parliament  did 
not  extend  to  direct  taxation  for  revenue,1  but  was 
limited  by  the  countervailing  colonial  constitutions, 
which  in  that  respect  had  become  part  of  the  gen 
eral  constitution,  to  taxes  imposed  by  the  navigation 
laws  and  some  others,  to  which  the  colonists  had 
given  their  implied  assent,  and  from  which  they  had 
received  equivalent  commercial  protection.  But  direct 
taxation  was  another  matter.  For  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  the  power,  if  it  ever  existed,  had  been  in 
abeyance,  and  the  colonies  had  been  allowed  to  grow 

1  In  a  notable  passage  in  Burke 's  "  Speech  on  American  Taxation  " 
(Works,  Little  &  Brown  ed.,  1839,  i.  492),  he  distinguishes  the  consti 
tution  of  Britain  from  the  constitution  of  the  British  empire,  con 
ceding  to  the  latter  the  power  of  taxing  in  Parliament  as  an  instru 
ment  of  empire  and  not  as  a  means  of  supply. 


164  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES 

and  shape  their  governments  and  their  policy  and 
manage  their  affairs  without  direct  contribution  to 
the  imperial  exchequer  e^en  for  their  own  govern 
ment  and  defense.  •- 

I  have  said  that  the  war  settled  none  of  "the  consti 
tutional  questions  for  which  it  was  waged ; 
stitu-  nor  did  thq  new  Constitution  itself  settle 
^uestions  ^nem  except  by  returning  to  the  British  con- 
remain  struction.  This,  it  is* true,  was  brought 
e  '  about  only  with  great  difficulty ;  for  there 
was  a  large  minority  led  by  such  "men  as  George  Ma 
son,  Elbridge  Gerry,  and  ^Samuel  Adams,  who  stren 
uously  contended  that  in  adopting^the  Constitution  of 
1787  the  people  surrendered  everything,  except  inde 
pendence,  for  which  they  had  fought  seven  years.  If 
the  present  Constitution  is  evidence  of  such  surrender, 
it  is  one  more  example  of  the  tenacity  with  which  the 
race  clings  to  the  principles  and  essential  forms  of 
government,  no  matter  by  what  name  they  are  called, 
to  which  they  have  been  attached,  and  with  which  are 
associated  their  progress  and  their  glory  and  even 
their  misfortunes. 

If  I  have  any  difficulty  in  determining  the  validity 
The  true  of  the  American  position  within  the  Consti- 
faken°in  tution,  either  imperial  or  colonial,  I  have 
the  pre-  none  whatever  in  this  :  that  the  navigation 
the  Decia-  laws  and  acts  of  trade,  taxation  without  re- 
ration  of  presentation,  the  attempts  to  force  an  epis- 

Independ-  '  .          <. 

ence—  copate  on  the  colonies,  and  the  exercise  of 

rai  right"  *ke   royal   prerogatives,  were  so   clearly  at 

of  men  to  variance   with    the   natural    and    acquired 

their5 own  rights  of  the  colonists,  that  at  the  time  when 

form  of  they  chose  to  assert  and  rely  upon  them  they 

ment.  were  clearly  justified  in  armed  resistance  ; 


THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  165 

and  so  were  they  if  the  British  connection  contravened 
the  sentiments  of  three  millions  of  people  as  to  what 
constituted  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  This,  however, 
is  not  in  the  light  of  constitutional  law,  but  is  an  ap 
peal  to  the  rights  of  man.  Here  Jefferson  was  strong, 
unassailable  —  in  the  preamble,  if  not  in  the  body  of 
the  Declaration.  Jefferson  is  a  great  character  and 
needs  a  great  stage  around  which  may  gather  all  the 
races  of  men  to  hear  what  he  has  to  say.  He  requires 
no  interpreter.  For  six  thousand  years  the  world  had 
been  waiting  for  the  words  which  he  so  spake  that 
all  men  heard. 


EEMARKS  ON  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL 
SCHOOL 


REPRINTED  FROM  THE  PROCEEDINGS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  JANUARY,  1890 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 


WITHIN  the  last  decade  there  has  grown  up  among 
us  a  new  school  of  history  which  has  its  principal  seats 
at  the  higher  universities.  It  is  now  so  well  known  by 
its  leading  characteristics  that  a  minute  description  of 
it  would  seem  like  pretending  to  a  new  discovery.  Its 
promise  is  high,  and  even  thus  early  its  work  is  more 
than  respectable  as  that  of  young  men  mainly  of  scho 
lastic  training,  unacquainted  with  affairs,  and  without 
opportunities  for  observing  how  the  elementary  facts 
which  make  history  are  colored  and  even  transformed 
in  legislative  assemblies,  by  judicial  decisions,  and  in 
the  tumultuous  proceedings  of  the  crowd.  Gibbon 
has  recorded  that  his  captainship  in  the  Hampshire 
grenadiers  had  not  been  useless  to  the  historian  of  the 
Roman  Empire  ;  and  every  one  knows  how  much  the 
historical  insight  of  Clarendon,  Hume,  and  Macaulay 
was  quickened,  and  how  much  their  narratives  gain  in 
closeness  and  verisimilitude  by  their  participation  in 
government,  diplomacy,  and  parliamentary  affairs. 
And  so  will  it  be  with  the  new  school  of  American 
historians.  Years  and  experience  will  add  greatly  to 
the  value  of  their  future  work. 

Their  methods  are  the  comparative  of  Bopp  and  the 
critical  of  the  later  scientists  ;  and  these  are  some 
thing  more  than  new  names  for  old  processes.  Hutch- 
inson,  Belknap,  Trumbull,  and  Ramsay  were  diligent 
seekers  and  close  observers.  They  did  good  work  ;  of 


170  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

its  kind  none  better  has  been  since  done.  But  their 
field  of  observation  was  no  wider  than  the  subject  in 
hand,  of  which  they  gave  the  facts  very  exactly,  but 
not  their  relative  values  ;  nor  were  they  curious  about 
remote  causes  or  the  origin  of  institutions. 

The  new  methods  have  produced  surprising  results 
in  history  as  well  as  in  science.  The  historian  of  the 
new  school,  distrusting  second-hand  authorities,  resorts 
to  original  documents  ;  and  if  these  are  legal,  which  is 
more  than  likely  to  be  the  case  in  American  history, 
as  our  English  colonies  were  based  on  legal  instru 
ments,  and  their  constitutional  history  is  mainly  to  be 
found  in  the  legal  interpretation  of  those  instruments, 
he  acquaints  himself  with  the  rules  of  interpreting 
such  documents.  The  neglect  of  this  obvious  duty  has 
often  led  to  deplorable  mistakes.  At  the  same  time 
he  considers  how  often,  and  how  justly,  legal  argu 
ments  and  conclusions  are  overruled  by  considerations 
of  public  policy.  This  is  especially  necessary  in  the 
history  of  the  period  just  before  the  Revolution 
ary  War,  when  the  weight  of  purely  legal  argument 
was  mostly  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other  a  weightier 
colonial  policy.  Deeper  than  legal  principles,  deeper 
even  than  questions  of  public  policy,  and  more  potent, 
were  the  instincts  and  traditions  of  the  race,  though 
voiced  as  they  often  were  by  wild  cries  of  the  mob, 
unthinking  and  sometimes  cruel,  but  generally  right 
in  their  main  purpose.  It  was  by  his  recognition  of 
these  and  by  his  appeal  to  them  that  Pitt,  with  vague 
notions  of  constitutional  law  and  sometimes  mistaken 
in  his  views  of  public  policy,  made  his  first  adminis 
tration  the  most  glorious  in  British  annals  ;  and  that 
Macaulay,  gathering  their  varied  expressions  from  re 
condite  sources,  added  to  his  narrative  much  which 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  171 

will  be  more  valued  than  its  brilliancy  and  pictur- 
esqueness. 

The  methods  of  the  new  school  are  adapted  to  their 
subjects  of  research  ;  and  these,  judiciously  chosen  as 
yet,  are  those  which  require  neither  a  large  canvas  nor 
imaginative  treatment,  but  rather,  patient  investiga 
tion  and  thoughtfulness,  —  such  as  the  origin  and 
growth  of  local  institutions,  municipal  governments, 
constitutions,  and  social  science.  Nor  is  this  history  of 
our  institutions  limited  to  their  beginnings  and  growth 
on  American  soil,  but  the  inquiry  is  pushed  into  the 
remote  habitats  and  ages  of  our  Anglo-Saxon  race. 

Nothing  could  be  better  than  this,  though  not  with 
out  its  perils  in  treatment.  In  a  large  view  the  human 
race  is  one  ;  its  thoughts,  desires,  necessities,  and 
modes  of  action  are  similar ;  and  so,  to  that  extent,  is 
its  essential  history.  But  such  generalizations  are 
more  safely  used  by  the  anthropologist  than  by  the 
historian.  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  certain  fascination 
in  tracing  the  unity  of  history.  It  pleases  the  reader 
not  less  than  the  historian.  There  are  few  more  effec 
tive  paragraphs  in  any  history  than  those  in  which 
Guizot  affirms  that  "  neither  the  English  revolution 
nor  the  French  revolution  ever  said,  wished,  or  did 
anything  that  had  not  been  said,  wished,  done,  or  at 
tempted  a  hundred  times  before  they  burst  forth  ;  .  .  . 
and  that  nothing  will  be  found  of  which  the  invention 
originated  with  them,  nothing  which  is  not  equally 
met  with,  or  which  at  all  events  did  not  come  into 
existence  in  periods  which  are  called  regular."  1 

I  have  spoken  of  this  school  as  new,  —  new  in  its 
methods  and  new  in  its  purposes  ;  and  so,  doubtless, 
it  is  in  this  country,  but  not  in  Europe.  Its  prototype 

1  English  Revolution^  preface. 


172  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

is  to  be  found  there,  and  there  its  most  distinguished 
master,  Dr.  Edward  A.  Freeman.  His  view  of  our 
history  may  be  gathered  from  a  paragraph  in  which  he 
says  that  "  the  early  institutions  of  Massachusetts  are 
part  of  the  general  institutions  of  the  English  people, 
as  those  are  again  part  of  the  general  institutions  of 
the  Teutonic  race,  and  those  are  again  part  of  the  gen 
eral  institutions  of  the  whole  Aryan  family."  And 
there  he  says  he  stops ;  but  he  adds  that  his  friends 
do  him  no  wrong  who  make  such  institutions  common 
to  all  mankind.1 

The  new  American  school  inclines  to  go  no  farther 
than  Freeman  goes.  But  there  is  danger  even  in  this. 
It  is  frequently  said  that  our  emigrant  ancestors 
brought  British  institutions  to  Massachusetts ;  and 
with  this  notion  we  seek  in  English  towns  the  proto 
types  of  our  own,  and  so  back  to  those  communities  in 
the  German  forests  vaguely  described  by  Tacitus  and 
CaBsar.  I  think  there  are  reasons  for  caution  in  ac 
cepting  the  conclusions  of  some  of  our  recent  historical 
writers  based  on  the  theory  of  Dr.  Freeman. 

Analogies  do  not  constitute  identities.  Instincts 
are  not  institutions  ;  nor  does  similarity  of  design  or 
adaptation  of  institutions  indicate  heredity  or  even 
relationship.  When  Englishmen  sought  new  homes 
on  American  soil,  they  doubtless  came  with  the  pur 
pose  of  organizing  society  and  government ;  but  they 
would  have  done  so  without  such  antecedent  purpose. 
With  forethought  they  brought  many  things.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  that  they  brought  institutions,  or 
had  even  meditated  the  form  which  they  would  give 
them.  They  certainly  brought  with  them  the  instincts, 

1  Introduction  to  American  Institutional  History  (Johns  Hopkins  Uni 
versity  Studies),  13. 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  173 

traditions,  and  habits  of  their  race,  and  these  deter 
mined  their  action  in  unwonted  situations  and  gave 
shape  to  their  institutions.  We  know  with  some  ex 
actness  what  they  brought  with  them.  We  have  the 
lading  of  the  ships  in  which  they  came.  Besides  them 
selves,  their  wives,  their  children  and  servants,  they 
brought  clergymen,  physicians,  surveyors,  mechanics, 
with  food  to  serve  until  the  soil  should  yield  it.  They 
brought  clothing,  furniture,  tools,  utensils,  weapons 
offensive  and  defensive,  and  animals.  They  brought 
"  Ministers,  Men  skilfull  in  making  of  pitch,  of  salt, 
vine  Planters,  Patent  Under  Seal,  a  Seal,  wheat,  rye, 
barley,  oats,  a  head  of  each  in  the  ear,  beans,  peas, 
stones  of  all  sorts  of  fruits,  as  peaches,  plums,  filberts, 
cherries,  pears,  apples,  quince  kernels,  pomegranates, 
woad  seed,  saffron  heads,  liquorice  seed,  roots  sent  and 
madder  roots,  potatoes,  hop  roots,  hemp  seed,  flax  seed 
against  winter,  connys,  currant  plants,  tame  turkeys, 
and  madder  seed."  But  we  nowhere  find  mention  of 
Magna  Charta,  the  British  Constitution,  the  Petition 
of  Eight,  or  English  institutions.  Nor  is  much  said 
about  them  in  their  books,  sermons,  diaries,  or  corre 
spondence.  But  when  they  needed,  they  found  them 
directly  enough  in  the  traditions  and  instincts  of  their 
race. 

While  their  general  purposes  were  clear,  there  is  no 
evidence  that  they  had  any  definite  and  fixed  plans  as 
to  their  government  or  institutions.  The  evidence  is 
all  the  other  way.  Their  charter,  the  expression  and 
measure  of  their  rights,  gave  them  no  power  to  set  up 
a  government  save  for  managing  a  land  company.  If 
they  intended  to  bring  an  English  town  with  them,  as 
is  so  often  said  they  did,  they  were  singularly  lacking 
in  care;  for  when  they  had  organized  their  common- 


174  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

wealth  government,  and  arranged  themselves  in  sepa 
rate  communities  for  which  corporate  town  powers 
were  necessary,  no  warrant  was  found  in  their  char 
ter,  and  to  meet  the  necessity  they  were  obliged  to 
usurp  the  power  of  forming  corporations,  for  which 
they  were  afterwards  called  to  account,  and  greatly  to 
their  cost. 

So  our  English  ancestors  did  not  bring  English 
towns  with  them,  nor  English  churches,  nor  vestries, 
nor  British  institutions.  But  on  occasion  they  builded 
for  themselves,  as  Englishmen  always  and  everywhere 
had  done  and  still  do,  according  to  the  exigencies  of 
their  situation  and  after  the  manner  of  their  race, 
just  as  the  seeds  they  brought  with  them  produced, 
each  after  its  kind,  but  modified  by  differences  of 
soil,  climate,  and  situation.  And  so  doubtless  was  it 
with  their  ancestors  and  ours,  who  came  from  the 
forests  of  Germany  to  England  ;  but  it  is  questionable 
whether  they  brought  German  towns  into  England. 
We  must  not  be  misled  by  analogies  or  resemblances, 
nor  assign  to  nationality  what  belongs  to  all  races. 
Wherever  people  are  gathered  in  stationary  com 
munities,  their  communal  wants  will  be  essentially 
the  same,  and  will  be  provided  for  essentially  in  the 
same  manner.  But  it  is  quite  probable  that  a  fully 
organized  New  England  town  differed  in  as  many 
particulars  and  as  widely  from  an  English  town  as 
that  from  a  German  town,  or  as  that  from  one  in  the 
heart  of  Africa. 

It  is  not  to  be  inferred  from  what  has  been  said 
that  the  new  historical  school  has  generally  fallen 
into  the  mistake  indicated,  though  perhaps  there  is 
a  tendency  to  do  so. 

One  of  those  who  adopted  the  extreme  view  as  to 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  175 

the  origin  and  powers  of  New  England  towns  was  the 
late  Professor  Alexander  Johnston.  His  opinions 
took  shape  in  a  monograph  entitled  "  The  Genesis  of 
a  New  England  State,"  published  in  1883,  which  was 
substantially  incorporated  into  his  history  of  "  Con 
necticut  :  A  Study  of  Commonwealth  Democracy," 
published  in  1887.  On  the  appearance  of  this  work 
I  read  it  with  interest ;  but  finding  some  statements 
and  opinions,  presently  to  be  referred  to,  which  seemed 
to  me  questionable  at  least,  I  made  memoranda  which 
form  the  substance  of  what  I  am  now  saying.  Pro 
fessor  Johnston  possessed  many  qualifications  for  writ 
ing  history.  He  readily  apprehended  and  swiftly 
methodized  the  facts  appertaining  to  his  subject,  and 
presented  them  in  an  attractive  style.  His  views  of 
the  origin  and  development  of  our  institutions  were 
those  of  the  new  school  pushed  beyond  their  extreme 
limits  ;  but  his  way  of  handling  facts  and  drawing 
inferences  from  them  was  his  own,  and  in  my  judg 
ment  not  to  be  commended. 

His  views  are  best  set  forth  in  his  own  words,  as 
follows :  — 

1.  "  Connecticut's  town  system  was,  by  a  fortunate  con 
currence  of  circumstances,  even  more  independent  of  out 
side  control  than  that  of  Massachusetts ;   the  principle  of 
local  government  had   here  a  more  complete  recognition  ; 
and  in  the  form  in  which  it  has  done  best  service,  its  begin 
ning  was  in  Connecticut. 

2.  "  The  first  conscious  and  deliberate  effort  on  this  con 
tinent  to  establish  the  democratic   principle   in  control  of 
government  was  the   settlement   of   Connecticut;    and  her 
Constitution  of  1639,  the  first  written  and  democratic  con 
stitution   on  record,  was   the  starting-point  for  the  demo 
cratic  development  which  has  since  gained   control  of  all 


176  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

our  Commonwealths,  and  now  makes  the  essential  feature 
of  our  commonwealth  government. 

3.  "  Democratic  institutions  enabled  the  people  of  Con 
necticut  to    maintain    throughout    their  colonial   history  a 
form   of   government  so  free  from    crown    control  that  it 
became  really  the  exemplar  of  the  rights  at  which  all  the 
colonies  finally  aimed. 

4.  "  Connecticut,   being  mainly  a  federation   of  towns, 
with  neither  so  much  of  the  centrifugal  force  as  in  Rhode 
Island  nor  so  much  of  the  centripetal  force  as  in  other  colo 
nies,  maintained  for  a  century  and  a  half  that  union  of  the 
democratic  and  federative  ideas  which  has  at  last  come  to 
mark  the  whole  United  States. 

5.  "The  Connecticut  delegates,   in   the    Convention   of 
1787,  by  another  happy  concurrence  of  circumstances,  held 
a  position  of  unusual  influence.     The  frame  of  their  com 
monwealth  government,   with  its    equal   representation   of 
towns  in  one  branch  and  its  general  popular  representa 
tion  in  the  other,  had  given  them  a  training  which  enabled 
them  to  bend  the  form  of  our  national  Constitution  into  a 
corresponding  shape ;  and  the  peculiar  constitution  of  our 
Congress,  in  the  different  bases  of  the  Senate  and  House  of 
Representatives,  was  thus  the  result  of  Connecticut's  long 
maintenance  of  a  federative  democracy." 

The  foregoing  propositions  contain  several  matters 
in  respect  to  which  I  find  myself  not  in  accord  with 
Professor  Johnston,  but  I  shall  advert  to  two  only ; 
and  these  are,  first,  his  ideas  of  the  origin  of  Con 
necticut  towns,  the  functions  assigned  to  them  in  the 
formation  of  that  Commonwealth,  and  their  subse 
quent  relation  to  it ;  and  second,  the  alleged  influence 
in  the  Convention  of  1787  of  the  Connecticut  system 
in  giving  shape  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

Before  giving  further  extracts  from  Professor  John- 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  177 

ston's  history,  I  will  notice  briefly  the  circumstances 
of  the  settlement  of  the  valley  of  the  Connecticut, 
detailed  more  fully  by  Palfrey.1 

The  most  considerable  emigration  to  Massachusetts 
Bay  which  followed  the  coming  of  Winthrop  in  the 
summer  of  1630  was  a  party  of  East  England  people 
who  landed  at  Boston,  September  4,  1633.  Of  these 
the  most  conspicuous  were  John  Cotton,  Thomas 
Hooker,  Samuel  Stone,  and  John  Haynes,  of  whom  all 
except  the  last  were  clergymen,  and  all  except  the 
first  were  prominent  in  bringing  about  three  years 
later  the  exodus  to  Connecticut,  and  in  setting  up  a 
new  commonwealth  there  in  1639.  Hooker  and  Stone 
were  settled  at  Newtown,  now  Cambridge,  as  pastor 
and  teacher  of  the  church  there ;  and  in  the  summer 
of  1636  they  led  many  of  their  congregation  as  well 
as  the  church  to  what  is  now  Hartford,  where  Haynes 
joined  them  the  next  year.  Warham,  the  Dorchester 
clergyman,  also  carried  his  church  and  part  of  the 
congregation  to  Windsor.  These  churches  emigrated 
as  organized  bodies,  thus  creating  vacancies  in  these 
several  towns,  which  were  filled  by  the  formation  of 
new  churches  at  Cambridge,  under  the  charge  of  Shep- 
ard,  and  at  Dorchester,  under  the  charge  of  Richard 
Mather,  the  famous  progenitor  of  the  more  famous 
Increase  and  Cotton  Mather.  But  the  emigrants 
from  Watertown,  Boston,  and  Roxbury,  accompanied 
by  several  eminent  men,  went  as  groups  of  people 
unorganized  either  as  church  or  community. 

Thus,  after  three  years'  residence  in  the  Bay,  these 
people  went  away  to  Connecticut.  Indeed,  they  had 
been  settled  only  a  few  months  before  they  conceived 
and  made  known  their  dissatisfaction  with  things  as 

1  History  of  New  England,  i.  444,  et  seq. 


178  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

they  found  them,  and  began  to  form  plans  for  re 
moval.  The  reasons  they  assigned  for  this  desire 
were  as  follows  :  — 

1.  "  Their  want  of  accommodation  for  their  cattle,  so  as 
they  were  not  able  to  maintain  their  ministers,  nor  could 
receive  any  more  of  their  friends  to  help  them  ;  and  here  it 
was  alleged  by  Mr.  Hooker,  as  a  fundamental  error,  that 
towns  were  so  near  to  each  other. 

2.  "  The  fruitfulness  and  commodiousness  of  Connecti 
cut,  and  the  danger  of  having  it  possessed  by  others,  Dutch 
or  English. 

3.  "  The  strong  bent  of  their  spirits  to  remove  thither."  1 

In  the  two  years  before  the  emigrants  led  by  Hooker 
had  reached  Connecticut,  a  considerable  number  of 
people  must  have  gathered  there ;  for  the  General 
Court,  September  3,  1635,  ordered  "  That  every  town 
upon  the  Connecticut  shall  have  liberty  to  choose 
their  own  constable,  who  shall  be  sworn  by  some 
magistrate  of  this  Court ;  "  and  on  March  4  of  the  next 
year  appointed  a  commission  to  order  provisionally 
for  one  year  the  affairs  of  the  people  there,  and  to 
call  a  court  of  the  inhabitants  to  execute  the  authority 
granted.  When  the  powers  of  the  Massachusetts 
commissioners  expired,  the  people  of  the  several 

1  Palfrey,  History  of  New  England,  i.  445.  Dr.  Palfrey  finds  other 
reasons  than  those  assigned  for  their  desire  to  remove  to  Connecticut ; 
and  his  views  are  adopted  by  Charles  M.  Andrews,  Fellow  in  History, 
1889-1890,  Johns  Hopkins  University,  in  his  monograph  entitled  The 
River  Towns  of  Connecticut.  It  seems  to  me,  however,  that  much 
which  has  not  been  said  may  with  good  reason  be  said  on  the  other 
side.  Under  three  heads,  Mr.  Andrews  has  admirably  treated  the 
Early  Settlement,  the  Land  System,  and  the  Towns  and  the  People 
of  Connecticut.  Mr.  Andrews  does  not  accept  Professor  Johnston's 
peculiar  theory  in  respect  to  the  Connecticut  towns,  and  quotes  judi 
cial  decisions  on  the  subject. 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  179 

towns  chose  their  successors,  and  held  courts  until 
the  adoption  of  a  constitution,  January  14,  1639. 
A  material  fact  to  be  noted  is  that  in  all  of  the  pro 
ceedings  of  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  relat 
ing  to  the  Connecticut  settlers,  they  are  spoken  of  as 
"  our  loving  friends,  neighbors,  freemen,  and  mem 
bers  of  Newtown,  Dorchester,  Watertown,  and  other 
places,  who  are  resolved  to  transport  themselves  and 
their  estates  unto  the  River  of  Connecticut,  and  there 
to  reside  and  inhabit."  No  mention  is  made  of  any 
"  migrating  towns." 

I  now  return  to  Professor  Johnston's  narrative. 
He  says :  — 

"  The  independence  of  the  town  was  a  political  fact  which 
has  colored  the  whole  history  of  the  Commonwealth,  and, 
through  it,  of  the  United  States.  Even  in  Massachusetts, 
after  the  real  beginning  of  the  government,  the  town  was 
subordinate  to  the  colony ;  and  though  the  independence  of 
the  churches  forced  a  considerable  local  freedom  there,  it 
was  not  so  fundamental  a  fact  as  in  Connecticut.  Here  the 
three  original  towns  had  in  the  beginning  left  common 
wealth  control  behind  them  when  they  left  the  parent 
colony.  They  had  gone  into  the  wilderness,  each  the  only 
organized  political  power  within  its  jurisdiction.  Since 
their  prototypes,  the  little  tuns  of  the  primeval  German 
forest,  there  had  been  no  such  examples  of  the  perfect 
capacity  of  the  political  cell  —  the  *  town  '  —  for  self-gov 
ernment.  In  Connecticut  it  was  the  towns  that  created  the 
Commonwealth ;  and  the  consequent  federative  idea  has 
steadily  influenced  the  colony  and  State  alike.  In  Con 
necticut  the  governing  principle,  due  to  the  original  consti 
tution  of  things  rather  than  to  the  policy  of  the  Common 
wealth,  has  been  that  the  town  is  the  residuary  legatee  of 
political  power  ;  that  it  is  the  State  which  is  called  upon  to 
make  out  a  clear  case  for  powers  to  which  it  lays  claim ; 


180  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

and  that  the  towns  have  a  prima  facie  case  in  their  favor 
wherever  a  doubt  arises  "  (p.  61). 

With  these  extracts  before  us  we  can  state  more 
succinctly  Professor  Johnston's  theory.  He  says, 
though  somewhat  vaguely,  that  towns  came  from  the 
forests  of  Germany  to  England,  and  from  England  to 
Massachusetts  Bay ;  and,  more  distinctly,  that  three  of 
them  — Watertown,  Newtown,  and  Dorchester,  —  as  or 
ganized  towns,  migrated  to  Connecticut,  and  there  in 
1639  set  up  a  commonwealth  as  the  result  of  their  joint 
corporate  action :  —  that  these  towns,  having  created 
a  commonwealth,  became  the  pattern  for  towns  in 
other  commonwealths  ;  and  so  happily  had  their  sys 
tem  of  confederated  towns  worked,  and  especially  in 
relation  to  the  commonwealth,  that  the  Connecticut 
delegation  in  the  Convention  of  1787  were  able  to  per 
suade  that  body  to  form  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  on  the  same  basis,  — the  Senate,  with  its  equal 
and  unalterable  representation  of  sovereign  States 
answering  to  the  independent  Connecticut  towns ; 
and  the  House  of  Representatives,  elected  by  popular 
vote,  answering  to  the  Connecticut  Council,  elected 
in  the  same  manner.  Professor  Johnston  says  :  — 

"  And  this  is  so  like  the  standard  theory  of  the  relations 
of  the  States  to  the  federal  government  that  it  is  neces 
sary  to  notice  the  peculiar  exactness  with  which  the  rela 
tions  of  Connecticut  towns  to  the  Commonwealth  are  propor 
tioned  to  the  relations  of  the  Commonwealth  to  the  United 
States.  In  other  States,  power  runs  from  the  State  up 
wards  and  from  the  State  downwards  ;  in  Connecticut,  the 
towns  have  always  been  to  the  Commonwealth  as  the  Com 
monwealth  to  the  Union.  ...  In  this  respect  the  life 
principle  of  the  American  Union  may  be  traced  straight 
back  to  the  primitive  union  of  the  three  little  settlements 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  181 

on  the  bank  of  the  Connecticut  River.  ...  It  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  the  birth  of  the  Constitution  [of  the 
United  States]  was  merely  the  grafting  of  the  Connecti 
cut  system  on  the  stock  of  the  confederation,  where  it  has 
grown  into  richer  luxuriance  than  Hooker  could  ever  have 
dreamed  of"  (pp.  62,  322). 

The  fallacy  of  this  scheme  lies  in  his  theory  respect 
ing  towns,  —  their  existence  independent  of  some  sov 
ereign  power. 

This  leads,  then,  to  an  examination  of  the  nature  of 
towns.  Three  things  seem  necessary  to  constitute  a 
town,  —  territory,  population,  and  corporate  existence. 

It  must  have  definite  territory  with  a  certain  per 
manency  of  tenure.  A  military  company,  a  camp- 
meeting,  or  a  tourist  party  —  frequently  more  numer 
ous  than  the  inhabitants  of  some  towns  —  occupying 
territory  for  an  indefinite  time  and,  it  may  be,  observing 
many  regulations  which  govern  towns,  nevertheless 
does  not  constitute  a  town.  Nor  does  a  migratory 
body  of  people  such  as  is  found  in  pastoral  regions  ; 
for  when  the  inhabitants  of  a  town  remove  to  another 
locality  they  do  not  take  their  town  with  them,  though 
no  town  remains  behind.  Whether  they  go  to  a  place 
within  the  same  jurisdiction  or  to  one  outside  of  it, 
in  either  case  on  removal  their  corporate  powers  re 
vert  to  the  state,  and  they  become  a  voluntary  organ 
ization  unknown  to  the  law  and  without  rights  before 
it.  They  are  relegated  to  their  natural  rights.  Again, 
the  inhabitants  of  a  town  constitute  a  legal  unit  which, 
for  certain  purposes  at  least,  absorbs  the  individual 
ity  of  its  members.  It  is  a  corporation  by  express 
creation  of  the  state,  or  has  become  such  by  prescrip 
tion  ;  and  one  of  the  tests  of  such  a  body-corporate  is 
its  power  to  sue  and  its  liability  to  be  sued  in  its 


182  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

corporate  name.  When,  therefore,  certain  inhabitants 
of  Watertown,  Cambridge,  and  Dorchester  migrated 
to  Connecticut,  even  though  they  constituted  the  ma 
jor  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  those  towns,  and  even 
though  they  had  carried  the  town  records  and  other 
evidences  of  their  corporate  existence  along  with  them, 
which  they  did  not,  they  went  simply  as  a  body  of  un 
organized  people  voluntarily  associated  for  seeking  a 
new  residence.  They  did  not  take  the  towns  along 
with  them.  After  the  migration  the  map  showed  no 
vacancies  with  asterisks  referring  to  the  margin, 
"  Gone  to  Connecticut."  They  went,  according  to  the 
act  authorizing  their  going,  as  "  divers  of  our  loving 
friends,  neighbors,  freemen,  and  members  of  Newtown, 
Dorchester,  Watertown,  and  other  places  ;  "  and  they 
went  under  the  government  of  commissioners  author 
ized,  not  to  create  towns,  but  to  exercise  certain 
powers  of  state  over  them  for  the  space  of  a  year.  So 
little  is  the  foundation  for  Professor  Johnston's  as 
sumption  "  that  three  fully  organized  Massachusetts 
towns  passed  out  of  the  jurisdiction  of  any  common 
wealth,  and  proceeded  to  build  up  a  commonwealth 
of  their  own  "  (p.  12). 

But  were  it  possible  and  were  it  true  that  the 
three  Massachusetts  towns  migrated  as  such,  it  is 
neither  true  nor  is  it  possible  that  they  could  have 
set  up  a  commonwealth,  though  their  people  might 
have  done  so,  and  in  fact  did. 

Professor  Johnston  calls  the  town  the  political 
cell  from  which  the  commonwealth  was  evolved. 
But  a  town  can  be  the  germ  of  nothing  but  a 
greater  town  ;  never  of  a  commonwealth.  The  rights 
and  duties  of  towns  are  communal,  and  for  such 
rights  and  duties  they  may  provide ;  but  even  then 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  183 

these  powers  are  delegated,  not  inherent.  The  state 
may,  and  often  does,  attend  to  these  matters.  But  the 
rights  and  duties  of  the  state  primarily  concern  sov 
ereignty,  external  relations,  and  general  laws  affect 
ing  the  inhabitants  of  all  the  state.  Some  of  these 
powers  the  state,  for  convenience,  may  delegate  to  the 
inhabitants  of  towns,  such  as  the  election  of  consta 
bles,  who  are  officers  of  the  state  not  of  the  town,  and 
whose  legal  relations  are  to  the  state  not  to  the  town. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  need  not  be  denied  that  a 
town  may  be  something  more,  and  like  the  Hanse 
Towns  become  qualifiedly  independent.  But  this  is 
not  in  consequence  of  the  development  or  extension 
of  communal  functions  so  as  to  include  national  func 
tions.  It  is  by  taking  on  new  functions.  Where 
these  are  exercised,  it  is  not  because  they  belong  to 
the  town  or  city  in  its  corporate  capacity,  but  because 
they  are  assumed  by  the  people,  and  their  assumption 
is  allowed  by  neighboring  states  ;  and  even  then  they 
owe  a  qualified  allegiance  to  some  sovereign,  which  is 
inconsistent  with  the  idea  of  an  absolutely  independ 
ent  commonwealth. 

If  we  look  at  the  natural  order  of  towns  and  com 
monwealths,  it  will  appear  that  the  latter  is  first.  The 
primary  question  of  government  which  concerns  every 
community  is  that  of  sovereignty.  When  this  is  not 
denied,  the  question  is  in  abeyance  ;  nor  does  it  prac 
tically  arise  where  communities,  under  a  previously 
settled  order  of  relations  to  the  sovereign  power,  pro 
ceed  at  once  to  provide  for  their  communal  relations. 

And  so  we  find  that  the  first  act  of  legislative  bod 
ies  is  to  provide  for  the  safety  of  the  body  politic,  and 
later  for  communal  affairs.  They  first  establish  the 
state,  and  then  erect  towns.  Nor  is  this  order  ever 


184  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

reversed.  The  genesis  of  the  state  is  not  from  its 
parts,  —  confederated  districts,  towns,  or  counties, — 
but  from  the  sovereign  people,  who  arrange  them 
selves  into  towns  and  counties. 

The  same  is  true  of  a  confederacy  of  independent 
states,  whether  monarchical  or  democratic ;  for  be 
hind  the  resultant  form  of  confederation  are  the 
people,  who  assent  to  the  proposed  relation. 

The  genesis  of  American  commonwealths  is  histori 
cally  clear.  (1)  They  originated  with  mere  adven 
turers  for  fishing,  hunting,  or  trading,  who  without 
territorial  ownership  or  by  state  authority  established 
themselves  on  the  coast.  Among  these,  though  with 
other  views,  must  be  included  the  Pilgrims  driven 
out  of  their  course  by  adverse  circumstances,  as  well 
as  the  first  settlers  of  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut. 
(2)  They  originated  with  those  who  had  purchased 
lands  and  obtained  charters.  (3)  They  were  founded 
under  proprietary  governments.  (4)  They  were 
founded  as  royal  governments.  In  all  these  cases 
we  find  that  people  first  addressed  themselves  to  their 
foreign  relations  and  to  the  perfecting  of  their  auto 
nomy.  Neither  towns  nor  town  records  appear  until 
much  later.  Nor  does  it  change  the  order  of  these  re 
lations  that  the  state  simultaneously  took  upon  itself 
the  direction  of  communal  as  well  as  of  general  affairs. 
The  town  was  not  the  primordial  cell  which  developed 
into  a  state,  but  the  state  was  the  mother  of  her 
towns.  Development  is  along  the  lines  of  original 
constitutions,  and  seldom  or  never  passes  over  into  a 
different  genus. 

In  accordance  with  this  order,  while  the  three  Mas 
sachusetts  towns  of  Watertown,  Cambridge,  and  Dor 
chester,  with  their  records  and  corporate  powers  and 


THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL  185 

muniments,  remain  where  they  were  first  settled,  it  is 
true  that  a  large  number  of  their  inhabitants,  between 
1634  and  1637,  migrated  to  Connecticut  and  settled 
as  communities  in  places  now  known  as  Hartford,  Wind 
sor,  and  Wether sfield.  They  went  as  unorganized  bod 
ies  of  people,  by  permission  of  the  Bay  Colony,  which, 
for  reasons  stated  in  their  commission,  had  assumed 
jurisdiction  over  that  part  of  Connecticut  —  a  fact 
recognized  by  the  migrating  parties.  It  is  further 
true  that  these  same  people,  —  not  in  any  corporate 
capacity,  for  that  they  lacked,  —  on  the  expiration  of 
the  Bay  Colony  commission,  chose  commissioners  for 
themselves  ;  and  in  1639,  in  the  language  of  their  own 
constitution,  "  We  the  Inhabitants  and  Residents  of 
Windsor,  Hartford,  and  Wethersfield  ...  do  associ 
ate  and  conform  ourselves  to  be  as  one  Public  State 
or  Commonwealth."  Such  was  the  genesis  of  Con 
necticut.  Towns  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
They  did  not  even  exist ;  and  it  was  not  before  1639 
that  the  unorganized  communities  which  went  from 
the  Bay  Colony  were  set  up  as  corporations.  Instead 
of  being  the  creators  of  the  commonwealth  they  were 
its  offspring.  From  the  commonwealth  they  derived 
all  of  their  powers.  Nor  is  their  character  in  any 
essential  respect  changed  —  they  are  neither  more  nor 
less  than  towns  —  by  the  fact  that  the  state,  for  the 
convenience  of  towns  more  widely  separated  from  one 
another  and  removed  from  a  common  centre  than 
were  those  in  the  Bay,  chose  to  delegate  a  larger  share 
of  her  authority  to  them  than  Massachusetts  did  to 
her  towns.  In  both  cases  they  derived  all  their 
power  from  the  state  and  conferred  none  upon  it. 
Nor  were  they  any  more  "  little  republics,"  or  more 
independent  of  state  control  than  other  towns  in  New 


186  THE  NEW  HISTORICAL  SCHOOL 

England,  because  in  apportioning  representation  to 
the  General  Court  town  lines  were  used  to  express  the 
territorial  unit  of  representation. 

It  would  seem  that  Professor  Johnston's  theory  of 
town  sovereignty  was  adopted  to  lay  the  foundation 
for  his  fifth  proposition,  that  in  the  Convention  of  1787 
the  equal  and  unchangeable  representation  of  the 
States  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  was  based 
upon  the  Connecticut  system  of  town  representation. 
So  far  from  this  being  probable,  the  fact  is  that  while 
the  representation  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States 
was  state  or  corporate  representation,  the  representa 
tion  in  the  General  Assembly  was  not  corporate  repre 
sentation,  but  essentially  the  representation  of  the 
people  determined,  not  by  corporate  powers,  but  by 
town  lines. 

We  find  nothing  in  the  debates  of  the  Convention  of 
1787  which  warrants  the  view  of  Professor  Johnston. 
Theories  of  government  were  discussed,  constitutions 
of  the  several  States  were  referred  to,  and  some  of 
their  provisions,  notably  those  of  Massachusetts,  were 
adopted;  but  the  main  features  of  the  Constitution 
were  determined  by  the  necessities  of  the  situation  and 
the  interests  of  sections  and  of  States,  —  as  large  or 
small,  agricultural  or  commercial,  slaveholding  or  non- 
slaveholding. 

The  Connecticut  delegation  had  great  influence  in 
the  Convention,  first,  because  Sherman,  Johnson,  and 
Ellsworth  were  very  able  men,  and  the  only  three  very 
able  men  from  any  State  who  worked  together ;  and 
secondly,  because  Connecticut,  being  neither  one  of 
the  largest  nor  one  of  the  smallest  States,  held  a  posi 
tion  of  great  influence  as  mediator  between  the  two 
classes  of  States. 


THE 

GENESIS  OF  THE  MASSACHUSETTS 
TOWN 

TAKEN  FROM  A  DISCUSSION  HELD  BY  CHARLES 

FRANCIS  ADAMS,  ABNER  C.  GOODELL,  JR., 

MELLEN  CHAMBERLAIN,    AND 

EDWARD  CHANNING 

/ 

REPRINTED    FROM    THE    PROCEEDINGS    OF    THE    MASSACHUSETTS 
HISTORICAL  SOCIETY,  JANUARY,  1892 


THE    GENESIS    OF    THE    MASSACHU 
SETTS  TOWN 


MR.  ADAMS,  in  presenting  his  paper  on  the  "  Gene 
sis  of  the  Massachusetts  Town  and  the  Development 
of  Town-meeting  Government,"  has  told  us  that  it  was 
written  as  a  chapter  of  his  forthcoming  History  of 
Quincy ;  and  that  he  had  sent  copies  of  it  to  several 
gentlemen  of  the  Society  —  to  myself  among  others  — 
with  the  request  that  at  this  meeting  they  would  ex 
press  their  opinions  respecting  the  conclusions  which 
he  had  reached. 

This  treatment  of  historical  questions  is  a  new  de 
parture  which,  so  far  as  it  tends  to  bring  about  a  con 
sensus  of  opinions,  might  be  followed  with  advantage  ; 
but  in  the  present  instance,  inasmuch  as  the  matters 
contained  in  Mr.  Adams's  paper,  as  well  as  those  in 
an  earlier  one  to  which  he  has  referred,  have  been  sub 
jects  of  correspondence  between  us,  and  as  my  general 
views  have  been  presented  to  the  Society  in  a  paper 
entitled  "  The  New  Historical  School,"  1  there  may  be 
no  good  reason  for  my  saying  more  than  this,  —  that  I 
regard  Mr.  Adams's  paper  as  a  valuable  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  the  subject,  and  in  general  that  it 
accords  with  my  own  views.  Nevertheless,  before  I 
sit  down  I  may  advert  to  the  few  points  on  which  we 
appear  to  differ. 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  series  2,  v.  264. 


190      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

In  the  mean  time  I  wish  to  say  something  about  the 
parochial  theory,  which,  though  not  new,  is  newly  in 
teresting  from  the  prominence  given  to  it  by  the  dis 
tinction  of  its  recent  advocates,  among  whom  was  Mr. 
Adams  ;  but  as  he  has  relieved  the  ship  by  throwing 
overboard  the  parish  system  as  the  most  cumbersome 
and  least  valuable  part  of  the  cargo,  advised  and  as 
sisted  therein  somewhat,  as  he  frankly  tells  us,  by  one 
or  two  of  the  passengers  who  had  made  the  voyage, 
some  explanation  of  the  reasons  which  influenced  them 
seems  due  at  this  time. 

The  origin  of  the  New  England  towns  is  not  a  new 
question.  It  has  been  discussed  at  home  and  abroad 
by  those  whose  training  and  predilection  for  historical 
questions  qualified  them  for  such  investigations.  I 
propose,  therefore,  to  mention  those  which  have  come 
under  my  eye,  and  have  aided  me  in  forming  the  con 
clusion  that  these  towns  were  of  domestic  and  secular 
origin,  owing  little  to  English  models,  and  least  of  all 
to  English  parishes. 

In  1845  Kichard  Frothingham,1  as  the  result  of  his 
investigations,  said  that  "  England  did  not  furnish  an 
example  of  New  England  town  government ;  "  and 
this  seems  to  have  remained  his  opinion  twenty-five 
years  later.2 

In  1857  Mr.  Justice  Gray  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
the  United  States,  then  reporter  of  the  decisions  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts,  in  notes  to  the  case 
of  Commonwealth  vs.  Roxbury  3  treated  one  phase  of 
the  question  with  great  thoroughness  and  ability. 

In  1865  Joel  Parker,  formerly  Chief  Justice  of  New 

1  History  of  Charlestown,  49. 

2  Proceedings  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  October,  1870. 
8  9  Gray's  Reports,  451. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS" TOWN   191 

Hampshire,  then  professor  in  the  Law  School  at  Cam 
bridge,  with  wider  scope  inquired  into  "The  Origin, 
Organization,  and  Influence  of  the  Towns  of  New  Eng 
land."  1  Having  myself  some  years  ago  and  again 
quite  recently  gone  over  the  same  ground  in  original 
authorities,  and  without  reference  to  his  work,  I  find 
that  I  am  in  accord  with  Professor  Parker's  views  ; 
and  were  it  otherwise,  I  should  venture  dissent  only 
on  the  clearest  grounds,  and  with  the  consensus  of 
those  on  whose  judgment  I  could  safely  rely.  For  his 
paper  in  substance,  though  not  in  form,  is  the  judicial 
opinion  of  one  whose  practice  as  a  leading  lawyer  at 
an  able  bar  or  as  judge  in  the  highest  legal  tribunal 
of  his  State  led  him  to  explore  the  origin  of  New  Eng 
land  towns  with  the  thoroughness  and  accuracy  re 
quired  by  his  great  responsibility. 

I  have  also  read  Mr.  Melville  Egleston's  "  The 
Land  System  of  the  New  England  Colonies,"  which 
seems  to  me  an  admirable  piece  of  work ;  and  not  less 
admirable  and  with  wider  range  are  the  papers  of  Mr. 
Charles  M.  Andrews,  now  professor  in  Bryn  Mawr 
College,  on  "  The  River  Towns  of  Connecticut," 2 
"  The  Beginning  of  the  Connecticut  Towns," 3  and 
"  The  Theory  of  the  Village  Community."  4  Mr.  Wil 
liam  E.  Foster,  of  Providence,  an  accomplished  writer 
on  historical  subjects,  has  published  a  valuable  paper 
on  "  Town  Government  in  Rhode  Island."  5  Either 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  vs..  14. 

2  Johns    Hopkins    University  Studies    in   Historical  and   Political 
Science,  1889. 

8  Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
October,  1890. 

4  Papers  of  the  American  Historical  Association,  v.  47. 

5  Johns   Hopkins    University  Studies   in   Historical    and   Political 
Science,  1886. 


192      GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

to  mention  or  to  commend  in  this  presence  "  The 
Origin  of  Towns  in  Massachusetts,"  by  our  learned 
associate  Mr.  Goodell,1  would  be  equally  superfluous. 

The  opinion  of  Professor  Parker,  that  New  Eng 
land  towns  were  essentially  indigenous,  has  been 
questioned,  sometimes  directly  and  sometimes  indi 
rectly,  by  the  New  Historical  School,  in  which  Pro 
fessor  H.  B.  Adams,  the  late  Professor  Johnston, 
Professor  John  Fiske,  and  our  associate  Professor 
Edward  Channing,  are  leaders  ;  and  therefore  after 
some  hesitation  I  have  concluded  to  review,  though 
not  exhaustively,  the  origin  of  New  England  towns. 
Mr.  Adams's  thoroughgoing  paper  makes  it  unneces 
sary  for  me  to  go  over  the  whole  ground.  There  are 
at  least  three  theories  in  respect  to  them. 

First,  that  they  were  native  to  the  soil,  and  planted 
by  English  emigrants  with  the  instincts,  traditions, 
and  methods  of  their  race,  but  controlled,  neverthe 
less,  by  their  charters,  patents,  or  royal  commissions, 
and  the  conditions  of  situation  utterly  unlike  those 
which  surrounded  them  in  England. 

Second,  that  they  were  copies  of  English  proto 
types,  as  those  were  of  German,  and  these,  again,  of 
those  in  remote  regions  inhabited  by  the  Aryan  race ; 
and  that  certain  resemblances  common  to  all  are 
specific  and  conscious  imitations  rather  than  those 
forms  and  modes  of  action  which  arise  spontaneously 
in  all  ages  and  everywhere  when  men  gather  in  per 
manent  bodies  as  village  communities  or  as  organized 
municipalities.  One  of  the  most  distinguished  of 
those  who  have  adopted  this  theory  and  pushed  it  to 
its  extreme  limits  was  Professor  Johnston,  who 
claimed  that  towns  —  not  companies  of  men  merely, 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  series  2,  v.  320. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     193 

but   organized    towns  —  migrated    from   England   to 
Massachusetts  Bay  and  thence  to  Connecticut.1 

i  In  the  paper  on  "  The  New  Historical  School  "  above  referred  to, 
I  said  that  in  the  cargoes  shipped  by  our  ancestors  to  Massachusetts 
Bay  no  such  thing-  as  a  town  was  to  be  found ;  and  this  I  hear  has 
been  regarded  as  a  denial  of  what  no  one  ever  thought  of  asserting. 
I  had  in  mind  the  following  paragraph  in  Professor  Johnston's  The 
United  States  :  Its  History  and  Constitution,  10 :  "  In  New  England 
local  organization  was  quite  different.  A  good  example  is  the  town 
of  Dorchester.  Organized  (March  20,  1630)  in  Plymouth,  England, 
when  its  people  were  on  the  point  of  embarkation  for  America,  it 
took  the  shape  of  a  distinct  town  and  church  before  they  went  on 
shipboard.  Its  civil  and  ecclesiastical  organizations  were  complete 
before  they  landed  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  and  came  under  the  juris 
diction  of  a  chartered  company.  Its  people  governed  themselves  in 
all  but  a  few  points,  in  which  the  colony  asserted  its  superiority.  As 
the  colony's  claims  increased,  the  town's  dissatisfaction  increased.  In 
1635  the  town  migrated  in  a  body,  with  its  civil  and  ecclesiastical  or 
ganizations  still  intact,  into  the  vacant  territory  of  Connecticut,  and 
there  became  the  town  of  Windsor."  This  is  what  had  been  asserted, 
and  this  is  what  I  denied,  —  that  a  town  came  over  with  Winthrop's 
fleet  in  1630.  The  sole  foundation  for  the  assertion,  so  far  as  I  am 
aware,  is  the  following  passage  from  Blake's  Annals  of  Dorchester,  7, 
amplified  somewhat  from  a  similar  passage  in  Clap's  Memoirs  in 
Young's  Chronicles  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  347 :  "  These  good  People 
[those  who  came  to  Dorchester  with  Maverick  and  Warham]  met  to 
gether  at  Plymouth,  a  Sea-port  Town  in  ye  Sd  County  of  Devon,  in 
order  to  Ship  themselves  &  Families  for  New-England ;  and  because 
they  designed  to  live  together  after  they  should  arrive  here,  they  met 
together  in  the  New  Hospital  in  Plymouth  and  Associated  into  Church 
Fellowship,  and  Chose  ye  Sd  Mr.  Maverick  and  Mr.  Warham  to  be 
their  Ministers  and  Officers,  keeping  ye  Day  as  a  Day  of  Solemn 
Fasting  &  Prayer,  and  ye  Sd  Ministers  accepted  of  ye  Call  &  Ex 
pressed  ye  same."  From  this  it  seems  to  have  been  inferred  that  cer 
tain  persons  who  met  at  Plymouth,  in  England,  with  the  intention  of 
going  to  Massachusetts  Bay,  by  forming  a  church  and  choosing 
church  officers  and  expressing  their  purpose  to  live  together  on  reach 
ing  New  England,  thereby  became  a  body  politic,  civil  and  ecclesias 
tical,  at  Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  without  having  acquired  that  char 
acter  by  prescription  or  by  incorporation  under  the  charter.  So  far 
as  this  assumption  applies  to  the  town,  it  does  not  require  serious 
refutation ;  nor  am  I  sure  that  it  is  better  founded  in  respect  to  the 
church.  The  simplest  idea  of  a  church  is  that  of  a  body  of  people 


194     GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

Third,  is  the  theory  which,  while  it  denies  or  is 
silent  in  respect  to  the  Germanic  origin  of  New  Eng 
land  towns,  claims  that  they  are  essentially  reproduc 
tions  of  the  English  parish,  and  their  procedure  that 
of  the  English  vestry.  The  late  Kev.  Mr.  Barry,  if 
not  to  the  fullest  extent  of  this  theory,  goes  very  far 
when  he  says:  "The  idea  of  the  formation  of  such 

associated  together  with  a  common  belief,  having  power  to  admit  and 
reject  members,  and  to  discipline  them  on  charges  which  if  not  proven 
might  be  actionable  with  damages,  except  for  the  immunity  accorded 
such  bodies  by  the  law  of  the  place.  That  such  a  body  can  exist 
proprio  vigore  without  the  permission,  expressed  or  implied,  of  the 
civil  power,  is,  I  confess,  utterly  at  variance  with  my  ideas  on  the 
subject.  Had  it  been  so,  what  would  have  prevented  any  like  num 
ber  of  Baptists,  Church  of  England  men,  or  Roman  Catholics  having 
right  to  allotments  of  lands  under  the  Company,  from  forming  them 
selves  into  churches  and  transporting  themselves  to  Massachusetts 
Bay,  with  ecclesiastical  rights  and  privileges  in  spite  of  the  Puritan 
church  ?  How  the  far  less  pretentious  claims  of  the  Episcopal 
Brownes  were  met  by  Endicott  and  his  Council  is  matter  of  history  ; 
and  how  the  General  Court  regarded  such  voluntary  associations  even 
by  those  whose  theological  tenets  and  church  forms  were  unexception 
able,  may  be  learned  from  the  following  order  of  the  General  Court, 
March  3,  1636 :  "  Forasmuch  as  it  hath  been  found  by  sad  experience, 
that  much  trouble  and  disturbance  hath  happened  both  to  the  church 
and  civil  state  by  the  officers  and  members  of  some  churches,  which 
have  been  gathered  within  the  limits  of  this  jurisdiction  in  an  undue 
manner,  and  not  with  such  public  approbation  as  were  meet,  it  is 
therefore  ordered  that  all  persons  are  to  take  notice  that  this  Court 
doth  not,  nor  will  hereafter,  approve  of  any  such  companies  of  men 
as  shall  henceforth  join  in  any  pretended  way  of  church  fellowship, 
without  they  shall  first  acquaint  the  magistrates,  and  the  elders  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  churches  in  this  jurisdiction,  with  their  inten 
tions,  and  have  their  approbation  herein  "  upon  pain  of  being  excluded 
from  admission  as  freemen.  —  1  Colonial  Records,  168. 

I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  theory  further  than  I  have  already 
done  in  "  The  New  Historical  School,"  chiefly  because,  if  not  given 
up,  it  has  at  least  been  greatly  shaken  in  late  years ;  but  partly  because 
its  critical  examination  leads  me  into  fields  with  which  I  am  not  alto 
gether  familiar,  and  from  which  those  who  are,  bring  back  widely 
different  and  inconsistent  reports. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN     195 

communities  [towns]  was  probably  derived  from  the 
parishes  of  England ;  for  each  town  was  a  parish,  and 
each  as  it  was  incorporated  was  required  to  contri 
bute  to  the  maintenance  of  the  ministry,  as  the  basis 
of  its  grants  of  municipal  rights."  l 

Professor  Fiske  puts  it  unequivocally  that  the  town 
government  in  New  England  "  was  simply  the  Eng 
lish  parish  government  brought  into  a  new  country 
and  adapted  to  the  new  situation."  2 

If  there  be  any  doubt  how  far  our  learned  associate 
Dr.  Edward  Channing  accepts  this  theory  in  his 
"  Town  and  County  Government,"  he  is  here  to  re 
solve  it  if  he  so  chooses. 

I  have  read  these  authorities  with  the  attention 
due  to  the  subject,  and  with  the  respect  commanded 
by  the  learning  and  ability  of  the  writers ;  but  if 
they  mean  more  than  this,  that  the  aptitude  of  the 
English  race  for  government  is  greater  than  that  of 
the  Latin  and  Celtic  races,  chiefly  by  reason  of  its 
experience  in  legislative  bodies,  among  which  may  be 
reckoned  English  town-meetings  and  parish  vestries, 
then  I  must  dissent  for  reasons  which  I  now  proceed 
to  give.  But  first  let  us  confront  these  theories  with 
the  phenomena  of  admitted  facts  in  regard  to  the 
origin  of  New  England  towns. 

The  sporadic  settlements  in  New  England  which 
ultimately  became  colonies,  or  towns  within  them, 
were  not  made  on  territory  under  the  acknowledged 
jurisdiction  of  any  sovereign  authority  capable  of 
instant  and  effective  protection  in  case  of  assault ;  but 

1  History  of  Massachusetts,  i.  215. 

2  Civil  Government  in  the  United  States,  39,  41,  42.     And  see  other 
references  by  Mr.  Adams  to  the  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  i.  405, 
427,  and  Brooks  Adams's  Emancipation  of  Massachusetts,  26. 


196      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

on  the  contrary,  proprietorship  and  jurisdiction  were 
claimed,  on  the  one  hand,  by  Indian  tribes,  and  on 
the  other,  by  the  French  with  whom  the  English  were 
chronically  at  war.  This  fact  lay  at  the  foundation 
of  origins,  and  had  a  formative  influence  upon  de 
velopments  from  them,  since  it  forced  the  settlers, 
whether  families  like  those  of  Maverick  at  Winnisim- 
met,  Blackstone  at  Boston,  and  Walford  at  Charles- 
town,  or  groups  like  those  at  Falmouth  and  Saco  in 
Maine,  and  Portsmouth,  Exeter,  and  Dover  in  New 
Hampshire,  and  Plymouth,  Salem,  Boston,  Groton, 
Haverhill,  Deerfield,  Springfield,  and  Northfield  in 
Massachusetts,  and  Providence,  Portsmouth,  New 
port,  and  Warwick  in  Rhode  Island,  and  Hartford, 
Wethersfield,  and  Windsor  in  Connecticut,  to  post 
pone  communal  affairs,  such  as  roads,  local  police, 
care  of  the  poor  and  schools,  to  affairs  of  state,  such 
as  war  and  peace,  limits  of  territory,  jurisdiction  and 
defence.  Each  of  these  towns  was  the  possible  centre 
of  an  independent  colony ;  and  five  of  them  (Exeter, 
Boston,  Plymouth,  Providence,  and  Hartford)  be 
came  such. 

This  phenomenon  in  the  origin  of  New  England 
towns  may  not  be  unique ;  but  to  find  anything  like 
it  in  the  Old  World,  we  must  run  back  into  the 
remote  past  until  we  meet  a  case  where  people  leav 
ing  the  protection  of  a  settled  government  sought  a 
region  foreign  and  remote ;  and  there,  first  asserting 
and  maintaining  independent  statehood,1  finally  rele- 

1  To  this  fact  of  statehood  common  in  the  history  of  so  many  of  the 
early  towns,  I  think  is  largely  due  that  spirit  of  independence,  as  little 
republics,  which  sometimes  asserted  itself  even  against  the  paramount 
government,  but  was  always  finally  reduced  to  due  subordination. 
The  mistake  has  been  made  of  regarding  this  spirit  of  independence 
—  a  survival  from  earlier  days  —  as  an  ultimate  fact  of  political  inde- 


GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     197 

gated  themselves  or  were  relegated  into  subordinate 
communities,  from  which  they  developed  into  corpo 
rate  bodies  having  essential  resemblance  to  those  New 
England  towns  which  have  attracted  attention  on 
both  sides  of  the  water,  as  something  the  precise  like 
of  which  does  not  appear  in  recorded  history. 

The  next  phenomenon,  though  not  peculiar  to  New 
England  towns,  is  this,  —  that  between  their  coming 
together  either  subject  to  some  paramount  govern 
ment  or  living  independent  of  any  such  government 
and  their  final  incorporation  as  bodies  politic,  these 
village  communities  exercised  certain  rights  and  per 
formed  certain  duties  not  unlike  those  which  after 
ward  appertained  to  them  as  incorporated  towns. 
By  common  consent,  it  would  seem,  they  divided 
some  lands  among  themselves  and  held  other  lands 
for  common  use,  either  for  wood  or  pasturage,  and  in 
both  cases  assuming  corporate  ownership  so  far  at 
least  as  to  make  good  title  in  the  allottees.  They 
also  provided  in  respect  to  those  communal  necessi 
ties  which,  few  and  simple  at  first,  increase  with  the 
growth  of  village  communities.  Nor  is  it  unlikely, 
but  on  the  contrary  it  is  most  likely,  that  for  better 
understanding  of  their  common  interests  they  came 
together  in  assemblies,  chose  a  chairman,  appointed 
committees,  and  delegated  certain  powers  to  a  select 
number  of  their  body,  just  as  they  had  done  in  their 

pendence  in  later  days.  Nothing  can  be  further  from  the  truth. 
Towns  were  sometimes  obliged  to  assume  the  duties  of  the  state,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  the  state  not  infrequently  discharged  communal 
offices  ;  but  when  their  character  as  state  or  town  was  ultimately  de 
termined,  each  was  relegated  to  its  own  proper  functions.  All  the 
powers  and  the  very  existence  of  towns  are  derived  from  the  state. 
At  any  time  it  may  unite  or  divide  them,  enlarge  or  diminish  their 
powers,  or  even  take  them  away  altogether. 


198     GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN 

English  parish  vestries,  and  for  that  matter  as  reason 
able  people  in  all  nations  and  in  all  ages  have  done 
and  must  still  continue  to  do.  In  the  absence  of 
records,  the  facts  of  this  stage  of  communal  life  are 
conjectural  rather  than  determinate.  From  their 
later  records,  however,  we  learn  some  things  which 
they  did,  but  little  as  to  the  precise  mode  of  doing 
them.  This  experience  doubtless  had  great  influence 
in  shaping  the  form,  determining  the  character,  and 
regulating  the  conduct  of  towns  after  they  became 
incorporated  bodies ;  and  indeed,  I  think  that  the  later 
definition  of  their  powers  and  duties  by  the  state  was 
mainly  in  confirmation  of  what  had  come  to  pass  from 
the  nature  of  things  and  their  circumstances. 

The  third  phenomenon  is  the  erection  of  these  com 
munities  into  bodies  politic  by  incorporation,  not  as 
units  of  the  sovereign  state,1  but  as  dependent  bodies 
owing  their  corporate  existence  and  exercising  all 
their  delegated  functions  in  strict  subordination  to 
the  paramount  power. 

The  last  phenomenon  presented  by  New  England 
towns  to  which  I  shall  advert  is  the  promulgation  by 
Massachusetts  as  early  as  1636  of  their  rights, 
powers,  and  duties,  with  a  completeness  and  precision 
to  which  the  advanced  civilization  of  two  and  a  half 
centuries  has  found  little  to  add.  Of  course  new  in- 

1  I  cannot  regard  towns  as  units  of  the  state,  as  some  do.  I  do  not 
see  that  the  mere  aggregation  of  like  things  produces  an  unlike  thing, 
as  that  several  hundreds  of  towns  of  derived  and  limited  powers  con 
stitute  a  state  of  sovereign  powers,  or  that  a  hundred  copper  cents  can 
be  constituent  units  of  a  gold  dollar,  or,  in  fine,  that  species  by  com 
bination  can  form  a  new  genus.  I  prefer  to  regard  the  state  as  an 
aggregation  in  a  body  politic  of  those  units  capable  of  forming  a 
state,  — the  duly  qualified  inhabitants  thereof,  upon  whom,  in  the 
last  analysis,  monarchies  and  even  despotisms,  as  well  as  republics, 
rest. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     199 

stances  and  new  applications  of  communal  powers  and 
duties  have  arisen,  and  others  doubtless  will  arise  in 
the  future  ;  but  the  principle  —  that  of  incorporation 
for  communal  purposes  —  remains  the  same  as  it  was 
in  the  beginning. 

I  now  proceed  to  consider  the  attempt  to  affiliate 
New  England  towns  upon  the  English  parish. 

We  all  know  what  a  New  England  town  is  to-day, 
—  its  organization,  the  source  of  its  powers  and  privi 
leges,  and  under  what  sanction  it  performs  its  duties. 
But  what  an  English  town  or  an  English  parish  is,  — 
what  their  several  jurisdictions,  powers,  rights,  duties, 
and  relations  to  each  other  and  to  the  sovereign 
authority  are,  —  it  is  not  easy  to  say  with  precision. 
Their  origins  reach  back  to  a  remote  and  clouded  an 
tiquity,  and  they  are  what  they  are,  not  by  written 
laws,  but  by  growth,  prescription,  and  specially 
granted  privileges,  so  varied  and  anomalous  that  any 
definition  of  them  has  almost  as  many  exceptions  as 
there  are  cases  included  in  it. 

There  is  another  impediment  to  the  successful  in 
vestigation  of  English  institutional  origins.  With  us, 
in  respect  to  our  own,  such  questions  excite  no  feeling 
more  poignant  than  a  rational  curiosity  as  to  the 
truth  of  history  ;  but  with  our  English  brethren  simi 
lar  questions  are  burning  questions,  involving  in  their 
settlement  either  way  not  only  the  sacrifice  of  deeply 
seated  political  and  ecclesiastical  prejudices,  but  also 
important  political  and  pecuniary  interests.  Hence 
in  the  discussion  of  them,  as  in  a  lawyer's  brief, 
authorities  which  make  for  one  side  are  set  forth  with 
fullness,  while  those  which  make  for  the  other  side  are 
too  frequently  suppressed  or  slurred  over.1 

1  In  his   History   of   Representative   Government,   Guizot  has   no- 


200     GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN 

In  England,  time  out  of  mind,  there  has  been  con 
tention  between  those  who,  on  the  one  hand,  would 
retain  within  parish  control  not  only  the  prudentials 
of  the  church,  but  also  the  maintenance  of  roads,  the 
care  of  the  poor,  etc.  ;  and  those,  on  the  other  hand, 
who  would  withdraw  from  an  essentially  ecclesiastical 
body  like  the  parish  the  care  of  matters  purely  secu 
lar,  and  intrust  the  direction  of  them  to  that  civil  cor 
porate  body  known  as  the  town.  This  contention  ar 
rays  people  into  parties  :  one  claiming  that  since,  in 
the  order  of  institution,  the  towns  antedate  the  church 
and  include  the  great  body  of  qualified  inhabitants, 
by  fair  right  they  should  control  those  secular  inter 
ests  which  belong  to  municipal  bodies  ;  and  the  other, 
denying  the  premises,  and  asserting  that  the  parish  is 
not  only  the  older  institution  but  that  it  is  and  always 
has  been  a  secular  institution,  demand  that  its  control 
of  secular  affairs  be  continued. 

And  so  this  historical  question  becomes  an  econo 
mic  question  upon  the  settlement  of  which  depends 
the  patronage  of  office  and  the  disbursement  of  the 
large  sums  annually  expended  in  municipal  affairs,  — 
whether  they  should  be  open  to  the  whole  body  of 
qualified  inhabitants  of  the  town,  or  continue  as  they 
have  been,  in  the  management  of  the  parish,  which, 
though  composed  mainly  of  the  same  persons  as  the 
town,  is  nevertheless  by  its  possession  of  machinery 
essentially  ecclesiastical,  and,  under  the  influence  of 
ecclesiastics  beyond  popular  control,  confines  to  a  few 
persons  rights  and  duties  which  belong  to  all. 

ticed  the  influence  of  political  predilection  in  shaping-  the  argument 
and  determining-  the  conclusion  both  of  Whig's  and  Tories,  —  the 
former  in  support  of  popularizing1  parliamentary  representation,  claim 
ing-  for  it  a  remote  antiquity  ;  and  the  Tories,  always  willing  to  re 
strict  popular  privileges,  asserting-  that  everything  which  sustains 
these  privileg-es  was  a  late  innovation. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     201 

On  any  question  of  English  local  history  fairly 
treated,  I  defer  to  the  English  decision  of  it,  however 
at  variance  with  any  opinion  I  have  drawn  of  original 
authorities ;  for  I  am  aware  that  an  American  must 
mainly  read  those  authorities  along  the  lines,  and  that 
only  a  native  is  privileged  to  read  between  the  lines, 
where  the  truest  part  of  history  is  always  to  be 
found. 

But  I  am  not  willing  to  accept  any  history,  foreign 
or  domestic,  written  to  serve  a  party  or  an  interest ; 
and  such,  after  careful  examination,  I  think  is  Toul- 
min  Smith's  "  The  Parish,"  greatly  relied  on  by  those 
who  find  the  origin  of  New  England  towns  in  the 
English  parish  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

Toulmin  Smith  claims  that  the  parish  antedates  the 
town ;  that  its  origin  and  functions  were  secular,  not 
ecclesiastical,  but  that  this  secular  body  had  drawn  to 
itself  certain  ecclesiastical  functions  ;  to  all  this  is  op 
posed  authority  equally  high,  at  least,  and  the  mani 
fest  tendency  of  ecclesiastical  power  everywhere  and 
in  all  ages  to  usurp  secular  powers. 

Brande1  says  that  "in  the  earliest  ages  of  the 
church,  the  parochia  was  the  district  placed  under 
the  superintendence  of  the  bishop,  and  was  equivalent 
to  the  diocese  ;  .  .  .  But  although  parishes  were  ori 
ginally  ecclesiastical  divisions,  they  may  now  be  more 
properly  considered  as  coming  under  the  class  of  civil 
divisions."  A  late  writer  whose  work  2  is  commended 
by  our  associate  Dr.  Channing,  as  "  the  best  descrip 
tion  of  the  English  parish  at  the  present  day,"  says : 
"  Though  in  its  origin  the  parish  was  probably  framed 
upon  the  old  township,  it  soon  became  a  purely  eccle- 

1  Dictionary  of  Science,  Literature,  and  Art,  title  "  Parish." 

2  Elliot's  The  State  and  the  Church,  p.  55. 


202      GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN 

siastical  division,  and  the  permanent  officers  were 
ecclesiastics  also.  The  church-wardens,  with  the  par 
ishioners  in  vestry  assembled,  presided  over  by  the 
clergyman,  managed  the  affairs  and  administered  the 
parochial  funds.  Gradually  the  tendency  increased 
to  treat  the  parish,  for  purposes  of  local  administra 
tion,  as  a  unit  as  well  as  an  ecclesiastical  division ; 
and  it  in  particular  acquired  statutory  authority  to 
impose  rates  to  provide  for  its  poor  and  to  elect  offi 
cers  to  collect  and  administer  the  funds  belonging  to 
it ;  whilst  on  the  parish  from  the  earliest  times  the 
old  common  law  had  always  imposed  the  duty  of  main 
taining  and  repairing  the  public  roads." 

But  against  all  this  Toulmin  Smith  contends,1  that 
the  parish  is  an  essential  part  of  the  fabric  of  the 
state  ;  that  its  original  and  main  work  and  functions 
were  secular ;  that  those  who  seek  to  represent  these 
as  being  ecclesiastical  are  truly,  though  without  al 
ways  intending  it,  enemies  both  to  the  religious  and 
civil  institutions  of  the  country  ; 2  that  the  parish  was 
made  for  the  administration  of  justice,  keeping  the 
peace,  collection  of  taxes,  and  the  other  purposes 
incidental  to  civil  government  and  local  well-being ; 
that  ecclesiastical  authorities  are  very  anxious  to  make 
it  appear  that  parishes  took  their  rise  from  ecclesias 
tical  arrangements  ;  that  ecclesiastics  no  sooner  be 
came  established  in  parishes  than  they  endeavored  to 
make  their  authority  paramount ;  that  the  old  mean 
ing  of  the  word  town  was  simply  what  we  now  call 
parish,  and  that  in  country  churchyards,  in  parishes 
where  there  has  never  been  any  town  in  the  modern 

1  The  Parish,  pp.  11,  12,  15,  23,  26,  33. 

2  This  and  similar  passages,  I  think,  justify  me  in  calling  his  work 
a  partisan  affair. 


GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     203 

sense,  inscriptions  will  be  found,  both  of  old  and  re 
cent  date,  naming  the  parish,  township,  or  otherwise, 
as  the  town.1 

Now,  whatever  may  be  the  truth  in  this  conflict  of 
authorities  respecting  the  nature  of  towns  and  parishes 
before  1600  or  after  1630,  it  would  be  much  to  our 
purpose  if  we  could  learn  what  the  parish  was  between 
those  dates ;  for  then  the  education,  character,  and 
prejudices  of  those  who  were  to  make  New  England 
towns  were  mainly  formed  by  their  participation  in 
English  parish  affairs.  What,  then,  during  these 
formative  years  was  there  in  the  conduct  of  English 
parishes  that  would  predispose  our  towns  to  accept  or 
to  reject  them  with  their  vestry  system  of  administra 
tion,  as  models  of  their  town  organizations  and  the 
conduct  of  their  town-meetings  ? 

This  question  may  be  answered  in  part  by  a  quota 
tion  from  Toulmin  Smith's  book  :  "  One  of  the  most 
daring  and  insidious  of  ecclesiastical  encroachments 
has  been  the  attempt  to  interfere  with  the  election  of 

1  It  is  by  such  argument  as  this  that  Toulmin  Smith  endeavors  to 
prove  the  legal  identity  of  the  corporations  in  England  known  as 
towns  and  parishes  ;  and  to  the  same  effect  I  have  found,  under  some 
mislaid  reference,  the  following  :  "  Memorandum  that  this  year  1581, 
by  the  consent  of  the  parish  of  Stowmarket  there  was  grant  made  to 
two  persons  of  the  ground  commonly  called  the  town  ground  of  Stow 
market  for  the  term  of  three  years  paying  to  the  church-warden  .  .  . 
and  the  town  further  do  condition,  etc.  ;  "  from  which  another  writer 
infers  that  the  town  and  parish  were  interchangeable  names  of  the 
same  body.  In  that  case  we  should  have  the  parish  (that  is,  the 
town)  consenting  to  a  lease  made  by  the  town  (that  is,  the  parish) ; 
or,  in  other  words,  the  town  makes  a  lease,  and  then  the  town  con 
sents  to  its  own  act,  which  is  absurd.  The  real  transaction  seems  to 
have  been  this  :  the  town,  one  corporation  and  owner  in  fee,  makes  a 
lease  of  the  "  town  ground ;  "  and  the  parish,  another  corporation, 
having  some  interest  in  that  ground,  for  a  valuable  consideration 
paid  to  the  church-wardens,  the  parish  representatives,  consents  to 
.the  lease,  thereby  giving  a  clear  title. 


204      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

church-wardens,  and  to  take  the  election  of  one  of 
them  out  of  the  hands  of  the  c  temporal  estate,'  and 
make  the  office  the  donative  of  the  parson.  This 
attempt  was  made  by  certain  ecclesiastical  canons 
adopted  by  Convocation  in  1603."  *  This  was  one  of 
the  one  hundred  and  forty-one  articles  of  the  Book  of 
Canons  which  passed  both  houses  of  Convocation  in 
May,  1603,  and  was  ratified  by  the  king,  but  was 
afterward  declared  by  the  courts  to  bind  only  the 
clergy,  not  having  been  confirmed  by  act  of  Parlia 
ment  ; 2  but  long  before  this  it  had  done  its  intended 
repressive  work  upon  the  Puritans,  against  whom  it 
was  chiefly  aimed.  Besides  the  article  already  quoted, 
designed  to  enlarge  the  power  of  the  established 
clergy  in  parish  affairs,  were  others  respecting  parish 
clerks.  Among  the  duties  of  the  parish  were  the 
repairs  of  the  church  edifice ;  and  under  cover  of  this, 
Laud,  some  years  later,  caused  the  restoration  of  those 
paintings  and  relics  of  superstition  and  idolatry,  as 
the  Puritans  thought  them,  which  had  been  destroyed 
after  the  Reformation.3  And  in  general,  the  parish 
vestry,  sometimes  legally  and  sometimes  otherwise, 
and  always  by  the  power  and  influence  of  its  officers, 
became  an  effective  instrument  in  the  enforcement  of 
those  cruel  measures  which  caused  so  much  suffering 
to  the  Puritans,  and  finally  drove  them  into  exile  in 
New  England.  This,  surely,  was  not  precisely  the 
education,  training,  and  personal  experience  which 
would  cause  them  to  become  so  enamored  of  the  par 
ish  system  as  to  make  it  the  model  of  their  Massachu 
setts  towns. 

1  The  Parish,  291. 

2  Neal's  History  of  the  Puritans,  ii.  57. 

3  Ibid.  240. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     205 

After  the  Reformation  an  English  church  with  its 
parish  vestry  performed  a  function  of  the  English 
government,  and  its  foundation  was  in  the  constitu 
tion.  A  local  church  was  part  of  a  system  co-exten 
sive  with  England,  recognizing  no  superior,  no  equal, 
no  other. 

The  creed,  ritual,  liturgy,  and  discipline  of  one 
church  were  those  of  every  other  established  church ; 
and  all  were  ordained  or  sanctioned  by  Parliament,  — 
a  secular,  not  a  spiritual  body. 

Its  ministers,  each  of  whom  was  a  corporation,  were 
not  chosen  by  the  local  church  or  parish,  but  on 
presentation  of  the  patron  in  whom  that  right  was 
private  property  subject  to  sale  or  mortgage,  and  who 
was  not  infrequently  influenced  by  most  unworthy 
motives,  were  instituted  by  the  bishops  of  the  diocese ; 
and  their  support  was  not  by  voluntary  contributions 
of  the  people,  but  mainly  by  tithes  exacted  from  them 
under  parliamentary  laws. 

Its  secular  or  prudential  affairs  were  managed  by 
the  vestry,  whose  powers,  enlarged  sometimes  by  law 
and  sometimes  by  ecclesiastical  usurpations,  had  come 
to  include  matters  having  no  relation  to  religion. 

That  the  high-churchmen  who  settled  Virginia 
should  adopt  this  system,  as  they  did,  would  ac 
cord  with  the  fitness  of  things;  but  that  Puritans 
should  do  so  was  not  likely  nor  in  accordance  with 
the  facts. 

For  the  Puritans  who  came  to  Massachusetts  Bay 
were  in  revolt  against  both  sides  of  the  system ;  and 
no  sooner  had  they  reached  Salem  than  they  swept 
away  every  vestige  of  it.  And  not  long  after  Endi- 
cott,  as  has  been  said,  shipped  the  Brownes  back  to 
England  for  openly  expressing  what  non-conformists 


206      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

had  professed,  —  loyalty  and  love  for  the  Church  of 
England.  So  wide  and  profound  was  the  change  they 
had  undergone  since  leaving  their  native  shores,  that 
those  who  had  been  non-conforming  Puritans  in  Eng 
land  became  independents  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  and 
ever  after,  in  creed,  discipline,  and  church  order,  were 
in  no  essential  respect  distinguishable  from  the  Sepa 
ratists  at  Plymouth. 

What,  then,  was  the  independency  which  Winthrop 
and  his  people  set  up,  and  whence  came  it?  The 
Puritan  church  system  established  on  New  England 
soil,  regarded  either  as  a  protest  against  the  Armiuian 
tendencies  of  the  English  Church,  or  as  a  mode  of 
ecclesiastical  government  having  relations  to  civil 
society,  was  an  exotic  brought  from  Geneva  to  Eng 
land,  and  thence  to  New  England.  The  Church  of 
England,  at  the  time  of  the  great  emigration,  was  led 
by  the  Arminian  Laud ;  the  Puritan  Church  of  New 
England  embraced  the  creed  of  Calvin  as  interpreted 
and  enforced  by  the  Synod  of  Dort.  The  Church  of 
England  was  dominated  by  a  hierarchy  to  which  the 
churches  in  every  parish  in  England  were  in  subjec 
tion.  A  Genevan  church  chose  its  own  creed,  estab 
lished  its  own  discipline  and  order  of  worship,  called 
its  own  pastor  and  supported  him  by  voluntary  con 
tributions. 

It  was  this  simple  Genevan  system  which  the  refu 
gees  from  persecution  in  the  days  of  Mary  brought 
back  on  their  return  from  the  Continent  in  the  days 
of  Elizabeth  and  James ;  and  it  was  this  Genevan 
system,  theological  and  ecclesiastical,  which  Elizabeth 
and  James  and  Charles  sought  to  crush  by  all  the 
powers  of  government,  civil  and  ecclesiastical ;  and  it 
was  from  the  persecution  brought  on  by  the  conflict 


GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     207 

between  the  two  systems  that  they  fled  to  New  Eng 
land  ;  nor  did  it  cease  even  there.1 

They  fled  from  the  Arminian  Laud  ;  what  likeli 
hood  of  their  bringing  Arminianism  to  Boston  ?  They 
fled  from  ecclesiastical  exactions  countenanced,  and 
in  some  particulars  enforced,  by  the  Church  of  Eng 
land  vestry  and  parish  authorities ;  what  greater  like 
lihood  of  their  choosing  an  English  parish  as  the 
model  of  a  New  England  town  ? 

Of  course,  in  both  systems  —  that  which  they  left 
behind  and  that  which  they  built  up  in  their  new 
homes  —  there  was  one  common  factor,  an  English 
man  ;  an  Englishman  with  the  instincts,  traditions, 
and  habits  of  his  race,  —  a  race  averse  indeed  to  new 
methods  and  inclined  to  old  methods,  but,  neverthe 
less,  never  allowing  them  to  stand  long  in  the  way  of 
needed  reforms  or  to  impede  the  course  of  essential 
justice,  as  Stratford  with  the  law  on  his  side  found, 
and  Charles  I.  with  the  constitution  on  his  side,  and 
as  did  James  II.  when  a  convention  assumed  the 
powers  of  Parliament  and  changed  the  succession  to 
the  crown  against  the  claim  of  divine  right  and  es 
tablished  order.  The  Puritans  were  Englishmen  in 
England  ;  they  were  no  more  and  no  less  than  English 
men  in  Boston  Bay.  We  need  not  be  surprised, 
therefore,  nor  draw  any  unwarranted  conclusions 

1  The  influences  which  prompted  the  movement  of  Laud  in  1634 
to  overthrow  the  Massachusetts  charter  may  be  gathered  from  Thomas 
Morton's  letter  written  from  England,  in  May,  1634,  to  William  Jef 
freys  in  Massachusetts  ;  "  which  shows  what  opinion  is  held  amongst 
them  [their  lordships]  of  King  Winthrop  with  all  his  inventions  and 
his  Amsterdam  fantastical  ordinances,  his  preachings,  marriages,  and 
other  abusive  ceremonies,  which  do  exemplify  his  detestation  to  the 
Church  of  England  and  the  contempt  of  his  Majesty's  authority  and 
wholesome  laws,  which  are  and  will  be  established  in  these  parts, 
invita  Minerva."  (New  English  Canaan,  Prince  Society  ed.  63.) 


208      GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

from  the  fact  that  in  their  new  homes  they  did  some 
things  after  the  old  fashion. 

And  because  New  England  towns  issued  warrants 
and  posted  notices  for  town-meetings,  and  chose  chair 
men  and  conducted  business  precisely  as  they  had 
done  in  English  towns  or  vestries,  and  as  civilized 
people  everywhere  do,  it  does  not  follow  that  they 
modeled  their  towns  to  the  pattern  of  an  English 
parish. 

What  are  the  essentials  of  the  two  systems  respec 
tively  ?  In  the  English  system  the  Church  of  Eng 
land,  with  its  associated  parish,  was  a  constituent  part 
of  the  English  government,  and  its  bishops  were  an 
estate  in  the  realm.  In  Massachusetts,  on  the  con 
trary,  neither  religion  nor  ecclesiasticism  was  a  con 
stituent  in  the  constitution,  —  the  charter  of  a  land 
company.  Both  were  functions  assumed  by  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  and  were  ultimately  lopped  off  with  no 
remaining  scar.  However  influential  the  clergy  may 
have  been,  —  and  their  influence  can  hardly  be  over 
estimated, —  they  had  neither  place  in  government, 
nor  summons  to  the  General  Court,  nor  voice  there 
unless  asked,  and  no  more  political  power  in  the  affairs 
of  state,  town,  or  church  than  other  freemen.  Nor 
was  their  loss  of  comparative  influence  in  later  days 
by  reason  of  their  elimination  from  the  constitution  : 
they  were  never  in  it. 

What  has  been  said  of  the  clergy  may  also  be  said 
of  the  church.  It  had  no  part  in  the  government, 
general  or  local.  It  sent  no  delegates  to  either  house, 
and  even  its  own  synods  were  held  only  by  express 
permission  of  the  General  Court. 

Of  the  forces  formative  of  a  constitution,  that  is  the 
most  original  and  dominating  which  longest  survives. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     209 

The  potent  has  permanence  ;  the  non-essential  falls 
away.  And  so  in  New  England  towns  to-day  the  full 
current  of  their  democratic  life-blood  flows  without  a 
strain  from  the  veins  of  that  composite  ecclesiastical, 
hierarchical,  and  civil  body  known  as  the  English  par 
ish.  Even  its  name  must  have  been  distasteful ;  for 
it  was  sedulously  avoided  by  people  and  legislators  for 
fifty  years  or  more,  and  then  came  into  use  with  pre 
cinct  and  district,  chiefly  to  describe  a  part  of  a  town 
set  off  to  form  another  religious  society.1 

For  the  foregoing  reasons  I  am  not  in  accord  with 
those  who  trace  the  origin  of  New  England  towns  to 
English  parishes  or  find  essential  resemblances  be 
tween  them.2 

1  The  relation  of  the  town  to  the  church  within  it  came  to  be,  out 
side  of  Boston,  the  same  as  that  of  the  modern  religious  society  to  the 
church  with  which  it  is  connected ;  that  is,  it  built  and  kept  in  repair 
the  church  edifice,  and  its  consent  was  necessary  to  the  settlement  of 
a  minister  nominated  by  the  church,  and  it  determined  the  amount  of 
his  salary  to  be  levied  on  the  taxable  persons  and  estates  within  the 
town.   All  these  matters  were  transacted  in  town-meeting1  duly  called, 
and  record  thereof   entered  by  the  town  clerk.     When  a  town  was 
found  too  large,  or  its  inhabitants  too  numerous  to  be  accommodated 
in  a  single  church,  or  for  other  sufficient  reason,  it  was  divided  terri 
torially  to  form  a  second  church.     This  second  church,  like  the  first, 
in  its  secular  affairs  was  based  on  the  taxable  persons  and  estates 
within  its  limits  ;  and  the  new  religious  society  was  called  the  second 
parish,  district,  or  precinct,  —  precinct  being,  I  think,  its  legal  desig 
nation.     This  new  precinct  was  a  quasi  corporation  for  religious  pur 
poses,  and,  like  the  town,  required  a  clerk  to  keep  its  records,  and 
assessors  and  collectors.     Its  powers  and  duties  were  defined  by  sta 
tute  ;  and  we  then  begin  to  hear  the  word  "  parish,"  —  a  survival,  and 
the  only  survival  I  find  of  the  English  parish,  —  in  common  use  as  the 
most  convenient  designation  of  the  new  division. 

2  In  this  investigation  I  have  not  been  unmindful  of  the  danger 
which  lurks  in  general  statements  of  facts,  or  in  conclusions  from  them 
in  respect  to  the  complicated  and  anomalous  nature  of  English  towns 
and  parishes  at  different  times  and  in  different  parts  of   England. 
Though  I  believe  I  have  good  authority  for  every  statement  I  have 
made,  yet  when  I  see  that  English  specialists  on  the  subject  differ  so 


210      GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

In  the  development  of  the  autonomy  of  the  New 
England  colonies  there  were  three  distinct  forces  aside 
from  soil,  climate,  and  situation,  all  acting  toward  a 
common  end  and  dominated  in  a  sense  before  unusual 
by  a  common  public  sentiment,  which  formed  the  at 
mosphere  out  of  which  neither  could  have  lived  and 
done  its  appointed  work.  These  were  the  state,  the 
town,  and  the  church;  and  these  three,  though  in 
some  sense  distinct,  were  not  three  states,  but  one 
state,  since  the  fundamental  idea  of  a  state  implies  its 
unity,  however  its  powers  are  distributed  or  by  what 
ever  agencies  its  functions  are  executed.  Yet  they 
were  distinct  in  this  sense  :  they  were  organizations, 
not  merely  several  collections  of  individuals  perform 
ing  certain  functions  of  government.  They  were  cor 
porate  bodies,  each  having  a  life  of  its  own,  but 
all  working  together  for  the  common  welfare.  The 
powers  of  neither  were  inherent.  The  state  derived 
its  powers  from  the  crown  ;  and  the  town  and  church 
theirs  severally  from  the  state. 

I  find,  as  I  think,  that  the  Puritan  state  and  town 
on  New  England  soil  were  essentially  indigenous,  and 
their  development  the  outcome  of  life  under  the  new 
conditions.  The  charter  of  Massachusetts,  it  is  true, 
was  of  English  origin  and  with  English  definition  of 
its  powers  ;  but  from  its  start  on  Massachusetts  soil 
it  swiftly  developed  from  a  land  company  into  a  gov- 

widely  among-  themselves,  notwithstanding  their  opportunities  for  local 
study,  and  aided  as  they  are  by  traditions  and  other  sources  of  infor 
mation  not  accessible  to  non-residents,  I  cannot  hope  to  have  avoided 
errors.  It  may  be  observed,  however,  that  if  any  historical  question 
is  to  be  settled  on  general  facts,  —  by  the  trend  of  the  stream  rather 
than  by  its  occasional  windings  and  retrogressions,  —  it  is  the  one  be 
fore  us,  in  respect  to  which  strong  probabilities  have  a  determinative 
force  when  the  facts  are  disputed. 


GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     211 

ernment  proper,  exercising  the  powers  and  functions 
of  sovereignty  with  only  nominal  subjection  to  the 
parent  state ;  and  New  England  towns  in  like  man 
ner  developed  their  autonomies  with  slight  reference 
to  their  English  analogues,  but  mainly  under  the  in 
fluence  of  the  new  government,  and  entirely  in  its 
spirit,  —  that  of  a  new  departure  in  a  new  world. 

The  very  settlement  and  permanence  of  New  Eng 
land  were  due  to  influences  not  at  all  in  accord  with 
the  economic  or  political  motives  which  before  had  led 
to  the  formation  of  colonies  with  the  permission  of  the 
parent  state.  It  was  religion,  but  not  the  church,  — 
religion  in  the  life  of  individuals,  not  religion  as  a  cor 
porate  power.  To  it,  as  such,  the  colonists  accorded 
no  independent  place  in  their  system,  but  held  it  in 
strict  subordination  to  the  civil  power. 

Thus  Massachusetts,  in  some  respects  unique  in  the 
motives  which  led  to  its  settlement  and  original*  in 
transforming  its  land-company  charter  into  a  frame 
of  general  government,  ordered  the  founding  and  char 
acter  of  its  towns,  churches,  and  other  institutions  on 
the  basis  of  an  independent  commonwealth.  But  it 
is  the  origin  of  her  towns  with  which  I  am  mainly 
concerned. 

It  is  not  always  easy  to  fix  the  beginning  or  the 
end  of  an  institution.  We  may  observe,  indeed,  when 
its  sun  rises  and  when  it  sets  ;  but  where  begins  its 
dawn  or  when  its  twilight  ends  is  quite  another  mat 
ter,  and  not  amenable  to  exact  definition.  And  so  is 
it  in  respect  to  Massachusetts  towns.  If  we  refer 
their  origin  to  the  first  enumeration  of  their  powers, 
our  search  ends  with  the  often  quoted  ordinance  of 
the  General  Court,  March  3,  1636  ;*  if  to  their 
1  Massachusetts  Records,  i.  172. 


212     GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

power  and  liability  to  sue  and  be  sued,  then  with  the 
statute  of  1694  ;  or  if  to  their  formal  incorporation 
as  bodies  politic,  then  only  with  a  search  for  nearly 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  ending  with  the  statute 
of  1785. 

The  period  of  uncertain  twilight,  therefore,  is 
between  the  possible  unrecorded  action  of  Endicott 
and  his  Council  after  the  arrival  of  the  charter  at 
Salem  in  1628  and  the  ordinance  of  1636  above 
referred  to ;  and  this  period  I  shall  now  attempt  to 
explore  with  such  lights  as  are  afforded. 

Of  the  several  attempts  to  form  settlements  along 
the  New  England  coast  prior  to  1628  apart  from 
Plymouth,  that  at  Sagadahoc,  in  1607,  was  a  total  fail 
ure  ;  those  of  Weston,  Gorges,  Morton,  and  Wollas- 
ton,  in  or  about  Weymouth  and  Quincy,  between 
1622  and  1625,  came  to  naught ;  and  those  in  New 
Hampshire,  by  Thompson  at  Little  Harbor  and  the 
Hiltons  at  Dover,  in  1623,  after  a  sickly  existence  for 
some  years,  were  brought  under  the  Massachusetts 
jurisdiction  in  1641,  and  so  remained  until  their  for 
mation  into  a  royal  government,  July  10,  1679. 
These  enterprises  did  not  stand  the  strain  of  labor, 
want,  and  sacrifice. 

A  few  individuals  with  their  families,  as  Maverick 
at  Winnisimmet,  Blackstone  at  Boston,  and  Wai- 
ford  at  Charlestown,  —  probably  survivals  of  wrecked 
companies,  —  maintained  isolated  plantations  ;  but 
the  largest  company  of  Englishmen  north  of  Plym 
outh  were  the  remnants  of  those  who,  under  the 
direction  of  English  capitalists,  between  1623  and 
1626  had  undertaken  to  form  a  plantation  in  connec 
tion  with  the  fisheries  at  Cape  Ann,  from  which  they 
removed  to  Salem. 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     213 

This  settlement,  for  some  time  under  the  care  of 
Roger  Conant,  became  the  basis  of  the  Massachusetts 
Bay  Colony ;  and  those  interested  in  it  —  chiefly  West 
England  people,  —  reinforced  by  London  capitalists 
in  1627,  obtained  from  the  Council  of  New  England 
a  grant  of  land,  March  19,  1628,  which  included  the 
greater  part  of  Massachusetts  as  now  bounded,  and, 
June  20  of  the  same  year,  sent  over  John  Endicott  as 
governor,  who  reached  Salem  on  September  6  follow 
ing.  The  next  year,  March  4,  1629,  the  king  granted 
them  a  charter. 

This,  it  is  to  be  remembered,  was  a  land  company 
formed  as  a  business  enterprise,  whose  policy  deter 
mined  the  nature  of  the  first  settlement,  and  finally  the 
character  of  the  Massachusetts  towns.  Their  plan 
contemplated  the  building  of  one  central  town  capa 
ble  of  defense  against  foreign  foes,  and  so  regulated 
that  while  it  allowed  the  planting  of  other  towns  in 
due  time,  it  would  nevertheless  present  an  unbroken 
front  to  Indian  hostilities  such  as  had  devastated  Vir 
ginia,1  and  threatened  the  sporadic  settlers  at  Winni- 
simmet. 

This  also  ought  to  be  remembered,  —  that  when 
Winthrop  and  the  East  England  Puritans,  in  the 
autumn  of  1629,  embarked  their  fortunes  in  the 
enterprise,  it  assumed  a  more  distinctively  religious 
character  which  did  much  to  shape  the  character  of 
New  England.  For  while  the  Company  from  the 
first  —  greatly  influenced,  doubtless,  by  the  very  rev 
erend  and  truly  pious  John  White  of  Dorchester,  by 

1  "  Be  not  too  confident  of  the  fidelity  of  the  salvages  .  .  .  Our 
countrymen  have  suffered  by  their  too  much  confidence  in  Virginia."  — 
Cradock  to  Endicott,  February  16,  1829,  Young's  Chronicles  of  Massa 
chusetts  Bay,  136. 


214      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

some  regarded  as  the  real  father  of  New  England  — 
provided  for  the  conversion  of  the  Indians,1  Winthrop 
and  his  associates  seem  to  have  contemplated  the 
grander  scheme  of  a  commonwealth  in  church  as 
well  as  in  state. 

As  I  have  said,  Endicott  arrived  at  Salem  early  in 
September,  1628,  and  as  governor  immediately  took 
charge  of  the  plantation.  Before  setting  sail  for  his 
government  he  was  doubtless  instructed  as  to  his 
powers  and  duties ;  but  these  instructions,  if  ever 
reduced  to  writing,  have  not  been  preserved.  We 
may  assume,  however,  that  they  were  in  accord  with 
those  sent  over  to  him  in  letters  under  date  of  Febru 
ary  16,  April  17,  and  May  28  of  the  next  year,  1629, 
and  the  accompanying  ordinances. 

A  resume  of  these  powers  and  duties  in  respect  to 
matters  now  in  hand  will  give  some  idea  of  the  influ 
ences  which  Endicott  brought  to  bear  in  forming  the 
character  of  towns  and  churches  before  the  coming  of 
Winthrop,  and  throw  light  upon  proceedings  after 
that  event,  where  the  records  are  silent. 

On  April  30,  1629,  the  General  Court  in  England 
declared  its  intention  "  to  settle  and  establish  an  abso 
lute  government  at  our  plantation  "  in  Massachusetts 
Bay,  and  in  pursuance  thereof  elected  Endicott  (who 
had  been  at  Salem  nearly  eight  months)  governor  ; 
and  he  received  a  duplicate  of  the  charter,  and  the 
seal  of  the  Company.  With  his  council  he  had  full 
legislative  and  executive  powers  consistent  with  the 
charter  and  not  contrary  to  the  laws  of  England  ; 
could  seize  and  hold  the  lands  claimed  by  Oldham 

1  "  And  we  trust  you  will  not  be  unmindful  of  the  main  end  of  your 
plantation,  by  endeavoring  to  bring  the  Indians  to  the  knowledge  of 
the  Gospel."  —  Cradock  to  Endicott,  ut  supra,  133. 


GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     215 

under  the  Gorges  patent  and  expel  intruders  thereon ; 
could  set  up  a  government  there  and  build  a  town  and 
choose  a  minister  for  it ;  arrange  with  the  old  planters 
in  respect  to  the  lands  they  occupied,  allot  lands  and 
convey  them  by  the  Company's  deed  under  seal,  build 
a  house  for  the  ministers  at  the  public  charge,  and 
build  one  chief  town  and  determine  location  of  all 
others. 

In  the  execution  of  these  large  and  varied  powers, 
it  is  not  altogether  likely  that  a  man  of  Endicott's 
positive  views  and  character,  exemplified  by  his  exci 
sion  of  the  cross  from  the  banner  of  England  and 
the  expulsion  of  the  Church  of  England  Brownes, 
would  find  models  for  his  towns  in  an  English  parish, 
thus  engrafting  an  anomalous  and  highly  artificial 
system  on  bare  creation. 

The  population  of  Salem,  including  those  who  came 
with  Endicott  in  September,  1628,  was  not  above 
sixty  persons,1  to  whom  Higginson  added  two  hun 
dred  the  next  year  ;  and  all,  "  by  common  consent  of 
the  old  planters,  were  combined  into  one  body  politic 
under  the  same  governor."2  By  sending  Endicott 
and  Higginson  with  their  companies  to  Salem,  the 
Company  determined  where  "  the  town "  should  be 
built,  houses  erected,  and  all  to  be  fortified,  as  Hig 
ginson  informs  us,  with  "  great  ordnance  ; "  and 
thither  came  the  greater  part  of  Wmthrop's  fleet  in 
June,  1630.  So  the  location  of  the  principal  town 
was  designated  by  the  Company  in  England ;  and  yet 
it  shows  the  nature  of  this  determining  power,  that 
when  the  Company  was  transferred  to  Massachusetts 
Bay  and  had  examined  the  situation  more  carefully, 

1  Young's  Chronicles  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  13  and  note. 

2  Ibid.  259. 


216      GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

Cambridge,  not  Salem,  was  made  the  capital  town. 
Plans  formed  in  England  gave  way  to  the  exigencies 
of  the  new  situation ;  and  this  was  the  case  all 
through  their  history. 

Thus  Salem  was  the  first  town  established  under 
the  Massachusetts  patent.  The  next  was  Charles- 
town,  and  in  this  wise.  Walford  had  been  there 
some  years  when  Graves  and  Bright,  probably  with 
the  Spragues,  were  sent  by  Endicott  in  1629,  agree 
ably  to  the  instructions  of  the  Company,  to  forestall 
the  intrusion  of  Oldham  under  the  Gorges  patent. 
Graves  was  the  Company's  engineer,  and  went  to 
Charlestown  to  build  the  town  ;  and  Bright  was  the 
minister  sent  to  preach  to  the  people  and  presumably 
to  gather  a  church. 

Such  was  the  origin  of  the  first  two  permanent 
towns  set  up  on  Massachusetts  Bay  soil ;  and  what 
ever  else  may  be  in  doubt,  such  as  the  precise  time 
of  the  separation  of  communal  affairs  from  the  more 
general  charter  government  and  their  commitment  to 
the  town  as  an  organized  body  politic,  it  seems  to  be 
clear  that  the  choice  of  their  sites,  their  laying  out5 
the  building  of  their  houses,  their  municipal  and  reli 
gious  organizations,  whatever  they  may  have  been, 
were  by  the  authority  and  express  order  of  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  and  without  the  slightest  reference,  so  far 
as  can  be  detected,  to  English  towns  or  parishes. 
And  I  think  the  sequel  shows  that  this  was  also  true 
in  respect  to  all  later  towns. 

I  have  called  these  settlements  at  Salem  and 
Charlestown  towns,  and  such  they  finally  became ; 
but  at  what  time  they  assumed  these  communal  func 
tions  does  not  clearly  appear.  They  were  never  in 
corporated  even  by  giving  them  names,  as  was  the 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     217 

case  with  some  other  towns ;  and  if  such  naming 
wag  equivalent  to  incorporation,  as  Professor  Parker 
holds,  the  omission  perhaps  implies  that  they  were 
regarded  as  already  municipal  corporations  in  1630. 
The  emigrants  to  both  places  were  entitled  to  lands 
by  allotment  and  conveyance  thereof  under  the  Com 
pany's  seal;  but  no  evidence  of  such  deeds,  if  any 
were  ever  made,  has  survived,  nor  are  there  records  of 
such  allotments  until  some  years  later,  though  there  is 
ample  evidence  of  private  ownership  and  cultivation 
as  early  as  1629,  when  Higginson  came.  It  is  not 
improbable  that  Endicott  allotted  to  each  party  the 
land  to  which  he  was  entitled,  or  for  lack  of  such 
allotment  that  each  chose  for  himself,  as  had  been 
agreed  that  he  might. 

But  neither  the  people  gathered  at  Salem  under 
Conant  nor  the  governments  set  up  there  and  at 
Charlestown  by  the  Company  constituted  a  town  in 
the  modern  sense  of  that  word,  and  least  of  all  in  the 
sense  which  has  made  New  England  towns  famous  in 
history.  For  a  time  they  were  something  more  than 
towns,  and  something  less,  —  something  more,  since 
they  were  centres  of  the  charter  government  in  whose 
affairs  they  participated  ;  something  less,  because  they 
were  denied  the  exclusive  privilege  of  developing  their 
local  autonomy.  Circumstances  determined  their  final 
character. 

We  must  therefore  widen  the  basis  for  generaliza 
tion,  and  I  now  recall  the  circumstances  which  at 
tended  the  settlements  in  and  about  Boston  Bay. 

The  first  emigration  under  the  Company  was  led  by 
Endicott  in  1628,  the  second  by  Higginson  in  1629, 
and  the  third  by  Winthrop  in  1630.  This  last  landed 
at  Salem,  June  12,  and  found  Endicott's  plantation 


218      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

—  or  colony,  as  Dudley  called  it  —  "  in  a  sad  and  un 
expected  condition,  above  eighty  of  them  being  dead 
the  winter  before,  and  many  of  those  alive  weak  and 
sick ;  all  the  corn  and  bread  amongst  them  all  hardly 
sufficient  to  feed  them  a  fortnight."  1  No  marvel 
that  Salem  "  pleased  them  not  as  a  place  for  sitting 
down ; "  and  five  days  later  (June  17)  Winthrop 
with  a  party  came  over  to  Boston  Bay  to  explore  the 
country.  They  sailed  up  the  Mystic,  and  on  their 
return  to  Salem  reported  in  favor  of  Medford,  as  is 
supposed,  for  the  site  of  "  the  town."  A  later  party 
preferred  Cambridge ;  and  accordingly  their  people 
and  goods  were  brought  around  and  landed  at  Charles- 
town,  because  from  sickness  they  were  too  weak  to 
carry  their  baggage  and  ordnance  up  the  river ;  and 
from  August  23  to  September  28  Charlestown  was 
the  seat  of  government. 

While  in  this  deplorable  condition  —  fifteen  hun 
dred  people  all  weakened  by  the  long  voyage  and 
many  sick  of  fevers  and  scurvy,  without  houses  or 
adequate  shelter  from  the  sultry  heat  of  August,  more 
trying  to  Englishmen  than  the  winter  cold  —  news 
came  that  the  French  were  preparing  to  attack  them. 
There  are  few  sadder  stories  than  theirs.  In  this 
complication  of  disasters,  not  less  than  a  hundred  of 
their  number,  discouraged  at  the  prospect  before 
them,  returned  to  England  in  the  same  ships  that  had 
brought  them  over. 

In  this  exigency  of  their  affairs,  too  weak  to  fortify 

Cambridge   against  the   enemy,   they  changed   their 

plans,  and  sought  safety  by  "  planting  dispersedly," 

—  some   at  Charlestown,  some   at   Boston,   some  at 

1  Letter  to  the  Countess  of  Lincoln  in  Young's  Chronicles  of  Mas' 
sachusetts  Bay,  311, 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN     219 

Medford,  some  at  Watertown,  some  at  Koxbury,  some 
at  Saugus,  and  some  at  Dorchester.1 

This  was  in  August,  1630,  less  than  a  month  from 
their  coming  into  Boston  Bay.  A  month  later,  Sep 
tember  7,  the  Court  of  Assistants  "  ordered  that  Tri- 
mountaine  shalbe  called  Boston  ;  Mattapan,  Dorches 
ter;  &  the  towne  upon  Charles  Ryver,  Waterton,"  2 
and  this  has  ever  since  been  regarded  as  equivalent 
to  their  incorporation.  And  thus  we  see  that  within 
three  months  after  coming  to  shore  in  a  wilderness 
the  Company,  contrary  to  their  intention  of  building 
only  a  single  town  at  first,  were  compelled  by  circum 
stances  to  lay  the  foundations  of  five  towns,  and  per 
mit  the  settlement  of  three  others.  And  this,  I  think, 
is  the  origin  of  all  later  towns,  —  in  the  paramount 
power  of  the  General  Court,  modified  by  the  circum- 

1  Dudley,  in  Young's  Chronicles  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  313. 

2  Massachusetts  Records,  i.  75.    This  order  suggests  two  inquiries.    If 
intended  as  an  act  of  incorporation,  as  it  ever  since  has  been  regarded, 
why  was  Boston   included,  and   Newtown,  or  Cambridge,  omitted  ? 
It  may  have  been  that  the  Court  deemed  the  establishment  of  the 
government  at  Cambridge  as  an  act  of  incorporation.     And  it  is  no 
ticeable  that  some  years  after  the  capital  had  been  transferred  to 
Boston  the  Court,  in  1638,  ordered  "  that  Newetowne  shall  hencefor 
ward  be  called  Cambrige,"  thus  following  the  precedent  in  the  text. 
— Ibid.  i.  228. 

If  the  order  was  intended  as  an  act  of  incorporation,  why  was  it  not 
expressed  in  terms,  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  places  named  should 
be  bodies  politic,  with  all  the  powers  and  subject  to  all  the  duties 
of  like  corporations  in  England  so  far  as  applicable  to  their  situation  ? 
As  a  lawyer,  Winthrop  knew  that  a  corporation  —  which  the  Com 
pany  was  —  could  not  create  corporations,  that  being  the  prerogative 
of  the  crown  ;  and  were  this  prerogative  assumed,  that  it  might  be 
an  awkward  fact,  if  explanation  were  demanded,  as  it  was  in  respect 
to  so  many  things  a  few  years  later.  In  1639  Winthrop  told  what  his 
policy  had  been,  —  as  little  positive  legislation  as  possible  ;  but  "  to 
raise  up  laws  by  practice  and  custom,"  as  involving  no  transgression 
of  the  limitations  in  the  charter.  Was  this  an  instance  of  the  appli 
cation  of  his  good  policy  ? 


220     GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

stances  of  each  particular  case.  As  further  evidence 
of  this,  on  the  same  day  of  the  foregoing  incorpora 
tion  of  Boston,  Dorchester,  and  Watertown,  it  was 
ordered  "  that  no  person  shall  plant  in  any  place 
within  the  limits  of  this  patent,  without  leave  from 
the  Governor  and  Assistants,  or  the  major  part  of 
them.  Also,  that  a  warrant  shall  presently  be  sent  to 
Aggawam,  to  command  those  that  are  planted  there 
forthwith  to  come  away."  1 

What  has  been  said  accounts  for  the  origin  of  Mas 
sachusetts  towns  so  far  as  relates  to  their  planting. 
If  we  now  look  forward  six  years  to  the  Act  of  the 
General  Court  of  March,  1635,  we  shall  learn  how 
their  powers  were  recognized  by  implication,  and 
what  they  were.2 

But  I  admit  that  we  must  go  deeper  into  the  mat 
ter  ;  for  it  may  be  fairly  said  that  the  Act  of  1636  3 
was  essentially  a  recognition  of  the  powers,  rights,  and 
privileges  already  acquired  and  exercised  by  towns 
at  that  date;  and  if  so,  the  question  still  remains, 
What  were  the  origin  and  development  of  towns  in 
the  form  in  which  they  now  exist  ? 

What  we  desire  to  learn,  however,  is  not  by  what 
principle  of  human  nature,  everywhere  and  at  all 
times  apparent,  it  is,  that  every  body  of  men  who 
find  themselves  associated  with  a  view  to  permanent 
residence  in  a  particular  place,  after  sufficient  assur 
ances  of  not  being  molested  from  without,  forthwith 

1  Massachusetts  Records,  i.  76. 

2  Ibid.  i.  172. 

8  It  will  be  observed  that  this  order  confers  upon  towns  no  powers ; 
it  is  restrictive.  The  language  is  that  the  freemen  of  any  town  or 
the  major  part  of  them  shall  only  have  power,  and  so  forth.  In  the 
Revision  of  1660  (p.  195)  the  law  is  made  positive  by  striking  out 
"only." 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     221 

prepare  to  meet  those  communal  necessities  which 
arise  in  all  communities ;  but  rather  what  there  was 
in  the  inherited  or  acquired  character  or  training  of 
Englishmen  which  differentiated  the  modes  of  devel 
opment  and  results  of  their  work  from  that  of  any 
other  people.  If  they  had  kept  records  of  their  pro 
ceedings  from  the  outset,  we  should  be  in  a  fair  way 
to  learn  what  we  desire  to  know ;  but  it  was  other 
wise,  for  the  earliest,  those  of  Dorchester,  began 
some  time  in  1631,  though  with  only  a  single  entry 
for  that  year,  —  a  year  after  its  settlement,  —  and 
those  of  Boston  not  until  September,  1634,  —  four 
years  after  its  settlement.  But  the  records  from 
what  may  be  called  the  historic  period,  though  mea 
gre,  throw  some  light  upon  the  antecedent  period,  and 
indicate  that  the  first  subject  which  engaged  their  at 
tention  was,  as  naturally  would  be  the  case  with  all 
incipient  communities,  the  distribution  of  their  lands 
and  assurance  of  boundaries  and  title.  Then  would 
follow  simple  police  regulations,  and  regulations  as  to 
roads,  churches,  and  schools.  The  matters  must  have 
been  few  and  simple,  for  so  they  remained  after  they 
found  it  desirable  to  keep  records  of  them. 

Now,  in  respect  to  the  first  and  most  important  of 
these  matters,  they  were  not  relegated,  as  all  settlers 
on  territory  not  under  a  general  government  are,  to 
mutual  agreement,  certainly  not  as  to  the  quantity  of 
land  to  which  each  was  entitled,  for  that  had  been 
definitely  fixed  beforehand  ;  nor  would  the  question 
of  quality  arise  until  all  desirable  lands  were  taken 
up.  And  so  we  find,  after  these  records  begin,  that 
party  fences  and  use  of  common  lands  are  subjects 
of  most  frequent  attention.1 

1  It  would  be  most  interesting  to  learn  precisely  how  they  arranged 


222      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

As  has  been  said,  the  sites  of  the  town  within  which 
allotments  were  to  be  made  were  fixed  by  the  Gen 
eral  Court,  and  the  quantity  of  land  to  which  each 
party  was  entitled,  by  ordinances  in  the  nature  of 
agreements  between  the  Company  and  the  settlers  ; 
and  all  that  remained  would  be  for  each  to  receive 
his  allotment  by  the  proper  authorities,  or,  that  fail 
ing,  to  select  for  himself  within  certain  prescribed 
limits,  as  he  was  entitled.  And  neither  in  these  nor 
in  any  subsequent  proceedings,  whatever  difficulties 
might  come,  would  they  find  guidance  in  their  experi 
ence  in  the  affairs  of  an  English  town  or  parish. 
The  Dorchester  records,  which  seem  to  be  typical, 
are  instructive  on  this  point.  For  the  first  three  years 
there  are  hardly  a  dozen  entries,  and  these  chiefly  of 
the  character  above  described.  At  the  end  of  their 
third  year  they  seem  to  have  developed  their  autonomy 
so  far  as  to  feel  the  necessity  of  bringing  their  action 
into  regular  and  prescribed  methods  of  procedure. 
But  it  is  a  little  remarkable  that  if  they  came  over 
as  a  fully  organized  English  town  and  church,  as 
some  have  thought  they  did,  or  with  only  lively  recol 
lections  of  their  experience  in  the  working  machinery 
of  an  English  parish  vestry,  they  did  not  at  once  put 
it  in  operation ;  or  if  it  be  said  that  for  aught  we 
know  they  may  have  done  so,  then  it  is  still  more 
remarkable  that  after  three  years'  trial  of  it,  a  dozen 
more  years  of  tentative  efforts  were  needed,  as  is 
indicated  by  their  votes  in  1633,  1636,  1642,  and 

with  regard  to  these  allotments  ;  but  the  records,  if  any  ever  existed, 
—  which  is  not  likely,  —  have  not  been  preserved.  Probably  they  did 
the  business  in  a  very'informal,  but  apparently  mutually  satisfactory 
way  ;  for  nothing-  is  said  about  allotments  (and  the  fact  is  noticeable) 
for  some  years  after  the  first  settlements,  —  in  Dorchester  for  more 
than  two  years  after,  and  in  Boston  for  more  than  four. 


GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     223 

1645,  before  they  found  that  the  requirements  of  their 
situation  were  met.  No  ;  as  their  situation  and  the 
exigencies  of  their  unwonted  life  were  entirely  new  to 
them,  so  they  found  it  necessary  to  invent  and  de 
velop  new  methods  for  a  satisfactory  adjustment. 
The  records  of  other  towns  show  a  similar  state  of 
affairs,  and  the  adoption  of  similar  tentative  efforts  in 
the  development  of  their  autonomies. 

But  lack  of  space  forbids  the  present  consideration 
of  the  many  interesting  questions  connected  with  the 
general  subject  of  the  origin  of  towns ;  and  this  espe 
cially, —  how  far  the  conditions  of  development  of 
towns  and  town-meeting  government  in  other  New 
England  colonies  differed  —  and  I  think  they  did  not 
essentially  —  from  those  imposed  upon  them  in  Mas 
sachusetts. 

In  the  foregoing  observations  I  have  not  attempted 
to  traverse  the  whole  ground  covered  by  Mr.  Adams, 
nor,  indeed,  have  I  confined  myself  to  it ;  but  have 
spoken  chiefly  of  some  matters  which  appear  to  me 
to  require  a  more  critical  examination  than  they  have 
yet  received,  so  far  as  I  am  aware. 

It  now  remains  to  say  a  few  words  on  some  points 
in  Mr.  Adams's  paper  ;  and  in  order  to  make  clear 
the  matters  on  which  we  appear  to  differ,  I  will  begin 
with  those  on  which  we  are  agreed.  We  seem  to 

O 

agree  :  — 

1.  That  the  development  of  the  Massachusetts  gov 
ernment,  under  its  charter,  was  on  purely  secular 
lines,  and  mainly  without  reference  to  English  pre 
cedents  or  influence  ; l 

1  I  have  heard  it  said,  for  example,  that  the  Massachusetts  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives,  as  two  distinct  houses,  trace  their 


224      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

2.  That  the  Massachusetts  towns,  neither  in  their 
origin  nor  in  their  development,  have  any  essential 
relations  to  English  towns,  parishes,  or  vestries,  but 
were  planted  by  the  authority  and  under  the  direction 
of  the  General  Court ;  and  that  they  regulated  their 
communal   affairs    and   modes  of   procedure    therein 
agreeably  to  the  requirements  of  novel  subjects  and 
unwonted  conditions  ; 

3.  That  the  Massachusetts  church,  though  modeled 
on  the  Genevan  system  in  creed,  discipline,  and  mode 
of  worship,  rested  on  a  civil  and  not  on  an  ecclesiasti 
cal  basis,  without  independent  powers  or  privileges, 
but  holding  all  in  due  subordination  to  the  General 
Court ; l  and 

4.  That  the  Massachusetts  land  system,  or  rather 
titles  and  assurances  of  estates,  was  anomalous,  and  is 
not  easily  to  be  understood  at  this  day.2 

origin  back  through  the  two  colonial  houses  of  the  Magistrates  and 
the  Deputies,  to  the  Houses  of  the  Lords  and  of  the  Commons.  The 
truth  is,  that  the  division  of  the  General  Court  into  two  houses,  sitting 
apart  from  each  other,  in  1643,  was  owing  to  a  strictly  local  and  even 
ludicrous  circumstance. 

1  Ralph  Smith  was  not  permitted  to  go  out  to  Massachusetts  Bay 
unless  he  would  bind  himself  ''  not  to  exercise  the  ministrey  within 
the  lymitts  of  our  plantation,  neither  publique  nor  private,  without  the 
consent  and  approbation  of  the  government  there  established  by  us," 
and  "  to  submit  to  such  orders  as  shall  be  there  established."     Mas 
sachusetts  Records,  37  f.,  390,  as  quoted  in  9  Gray's  Reports,  505. 

2  I  yield  to  no  one  in  admiration  for  Mr.  Doyle's  English  in  America, 
but  I  should  not  select  as  an  example  of  his  best  treatment  of  colo 
nial  subjects  the  following  passage  quoted  with  approval  by  Mr.  Ad 
ams  :  "  In  New  England  the  soil  was  granted  by  the  government  of 
the  colony,  not  to  an  individual,  but  to  a  corporation.     It  was  from 
the  corporation  that  each  occupant  claimed  his  right.  .  .  .  The  New 
England  township  was  a  landholder."    This  statement  overlooks,  first, 
the  quite  numerous  and  very  large  grants  of  land  to  leading  men  in 
the  colony,  either  as  dividends  on  their  stock  or  for  eminent  services 
rendered.     Secondly,  it  overlooks  the  orders  of  the  Company  in  Eng- 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN     225 

Now  for  the  matters  in  respect  to  which  we  appear 
to  differ. 

The  distinction  between  "  inhabitants  "  and  "  pro 
prietors,"  about  which  Mr.  Adams  and  Mr.  Goodell 
seem  to  be  at  variance,  raises  a  somewhat  difficult 
question  which  I  am  not  quite  sure  that  I  fully  under 
stand  ;  but  as  far  as  I  do,  I  think  there  are  grounds 
for  Mr.  Goodell's  caveat.  Mr.  Adams's  views  respect 
ing  the  origin,  development,  and  autonomy  of  Massa 
chusetts  towns  differ  so  widely  —  and  in  my  judgment, 
for  the  better  —  from  much  that  passes  for  history, 

land  to  Endicott  at  Salem  for  the  conveyance  to  individuals,  as  they 
were  entitled,  of  lands  by  the  Company's  deeds  under  seal ;  and,  as  I 
think,  that  all  titles,  whether  by  deed  or  allotment  by  the  Company, 
or  by  its  agents,  — which,  as  I  conceive,  were  the  towns  pro  hac  vice, 
—  were  holdings  from  the  Company  and  not  from  the  town.  In  no 
just  sense  were  the  towns  landholders ;  that  is,  they  neither  bought 
nor  sold  nor  leased  lands  ;  nor,  save  some  common  lands,  did  the  towns 
hold  them  for  community  use.  In  strictness  of  law,  the  towns  not  be 
ing  legally  incorporated  bodies  politic,  —  for  then,  as  now,  one  corpo 
ration  cannot  create  another  corporation ;  that  being  a  prerogative  of 
sovereignty,  —  they  could  not  take,  and  therefore  could  not  make,  title. 
Those  proceedings  were,  as  I  have  said,  anomalous,  and  hard  to  under 
stand.  Nevertheless,  whatever  they  wished  to  do  they  found  a  way 
of  doing  in  sublime  disregard  of  English  law  and  usages.  Doubtless 
the  General  Court  said  from  time  to  time  that  certain  towns  should 
"  have  enlargement,"  or  that  lands  should  "  belong  "  to  them ;  and  it 
is  also  true  that  the  towns  held  such  lands,  some  of  which  they  distrib 
uted  by  allotment,  and  others  held  for  common  use,  and  that  these 
titles  are  now  good,  but  on  what  theory,  unless  that  of  long  possession, 
as  the  colonists  claimed  in  Andros's  time,  it  is  difficult  to  understand. 
It  would  seem,  however,  that  all  land-titles  to-day  within  the  limits 
of  Massachusetts  Bay  rest  upon  conveyances  in  some  way  from  that 
Company ;  but  there  can  be  no  question  that  the  control  which  the 
towns,  whether  owners  in  fee  or  implied  agents  of  the  great  Land  Com 
pany,  exercised  in  their  distribution,  had  great  influence  in  develop 
ing  and  forming  the  character  of  their  autonomy.  And  in  this  aspect 
of  the  matter,  Mr.  Doyle  undoubtedly  well  says,  that  "  of  the  various 
rights  of  the  New  England  township  the  most  important,  perhaps,  was 
the  territorial." 


226      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

that  I  am  inclined  to  accept  them  not  only  as  a  valu 
able  contribution  to  the  studies  of  the  subject,  but  as 
generally  sound ;  and  yet,  if  I  may  dissent  from  some 
of  his  positions,  —  and  that,  I  suppose,  is  what  I  am 
here  for,  —  I  should  put  some  things  a  little  differ 
ently,  or  at  least  use  a  different  nomenclature.  For 
example,  I  do  not  perceive  the  analogy  which  he  per 
ceives  between  the  General  Court  and  Court  of  Assist 
ants  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  "  inhabitants "  and 
"  selectmen  "  on  the  other,  in  respect  to  the  subjects 
or  to  the  modes  of  their  action  severally,  —  certainly 
it  was  not  institutional ;  nor  do  I  think  that "  freemen 
or  inhabitants "  are  interchangeable  terms  equally 
descriptive  of  the  same  class  of  people  ;  nor  that  "  the 
inhabitants  of  the  towns  were  those  owning  lands,  — 
the  freeholders,  —  who  were  all  members  of  the  con 
gregation  ;  "  nor  that  "  inhabitants  "  of  towns  "  were 
in  the  nature  of  stockholders  in  a  modern  corpora 
tion."  To  me  these  and  some  similar  expressions 
convey  ideas  foreign  to  the  homely  simplicity  of  those 
early  people  and  the  nature  of  their  affairs.  As  I 
have  said,  the  difference  between  us  may  be  one 
merely  of  nomenclature ;  but  my  way  of  putting  the 
matter  is  this,  —  and  of  course  I  prefer  it  to  Mr. 
Adams's  way :  — 

My  idea  of  a  seventeenth-century  Massachusetts 
town  is  that  it  was  almost  exclusively  an  agricultural 
community,  having  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  manu 
factures  except  of  the  simplest  kind,  or  trade,  or  with 
anything  in  which  "  stock  "  could  be  taken.  Beyond 
assurance  of  their  own  lands  and  of  their  interest  in 
common  lands,  the  just  levy  and  economical  expendi 
ture  of  communal  taxes,  the  education  of  their  chil 
dren  and  the  care  of  their  souls,  their  interests,  wants, 


GENESIS  OF  MASSACHUSETTS  TOWN     227 

and  desires  were  few  and  of  the  simplest  kind,  and 
will  not  bear  being  raised  by  the  imagination  ; 

That  the  "  inhabitant  "  included  all  male  adults, 
who,  either  by  general  laws  or  town  regulations,  were 
permitted  permanently  to  reside  within  the  town  lim 
its,  irrespective  of  their  ownership  of  lands ; 

That  the  whole  body  of  people  within  the  town  con 
sisted,  first,  of  those  who  had  been  admitted  freemen 
of  the  colony ;  second,  of  those  who  by  original  volun 
tary  association  or  by  subsequent  vote,  express  or  im 
plied,  had  become  permanent  residents  ;  third,  of  that 
miscellaneous  class  of  people,  who,  as  servants  and 
laborers,  were  mainly  adjuncts  to  families  and  had 
little  stake  in  society ;  and  finally,  of  all  other  persons, 
as  women  and  children,  not  usually  reckoned  as  mem 
bers  of  the  body  politic  of  a  town  ; 

That  in  the  early  years  of  towns,  as  their  records 
indicate,  the  first  three  classes  above  mentioned,  with 
out  strict  regard  to  their  several  rights,  assembled  "  in 
general  meeting  of  the  inhabitants,"  and  there,  with 
out  much  formality  in  their  proceedings,  disposed  of 
their  few  and  simple  communal  affairs  ;  but  as  these 
became  more  complicated  or  of  greater  magnitude, 
the  legal  rights  of  these  several  classes  were  more 
sharply  defined  and  strictly  enforced.  The  freemen, 
legally  inhabitants  of  the  town,  were  the  sole  electors 
of  all  colonial  officers,  deputies  to  the  General  Court, 
and  voters  on  questions  of  a  public  nature  as  distinct 
from  those  merely  communal ;  and  though  there  seems 
to  have  been  no  uniform  rule  or  practice  in  all  towns, 
that  which  appears  to  have  been  most  common  was 
for  all  adult  inhabitants,  whether  freemen  or  land 
holders  or  otherwise,  to  vote  on  all  questions  of  com 
munal  affairs  ;  and  this  was  made  law  in  1641. 


228      GENESIS   OF  MASSACHUSETTS   TOWN 

And  with  this  simple  array  of  their  forces,  these 
towns,  unique  in  their  origin,  lacking  essential  experi 
ence  of  like  circumstances,  and  without  ecclesiastical 
interference  or  restraints  save  those  imposed  by  the 
General  Court,  after  a  few  years  learned  to  manage 
their  municipal  affairs  with  such  wisdom  and  success, 
that  in  the  course  of  time  they  so  enlarged  their  views, 
but  without  overstepping  the  bounds  the  law  had  set 
up,  that  they  became  a  power  which  modified  the 
action  of  the  government,  and  in  the  fullness  of  time 
most  effective  agencies  in  the  dismemberment  of  the 
empire,  and  so  famous  throughout  the  civilized  world. 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

AN  ADDEESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  BOSTONIAN  SOCIETY, 
DECEMBER  12,  1893 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  BOSTONIAN   SOCIETY,  DECEM 
BER    12,   1893 


JAMES  OTIS' s  words  arraigning  the  commercial 
policy  of  Great  Britain,  so  hostile  to  colonial  interests, 
were  the  first  of  their  kind  ever  uttered  before  a  judi 
cial  tribunal  on  this  continent.  They  were  heard  far 
beyond  the  walls  of  this  room,1  and  to  them  John 
Adams  attributed  a  powerful  influence  in  bringing 
forward  the  controversy  which  resulted  in  the  sever 
ance  of  the  empire  ;  but  to  no  single  cause  or  agency 
was  that  event  attributable.  A  hundred  years  before 
this  it  was  said  in  legislative  assemblies,  by  the  far 
mer's  fireside,  in  the  shops  of  mechanics,  and  by  those 
following  the  plough,  that  "  The  Eights  of  English 
men  follow  them  to  the  end  of  the  earth  ;  "  and  "  No 
Representation,  No  Taxation."  In  no  place  on  this 
continent  were  these  words  heard  earlier  or  oftener 
than  in  the  old  State  House,  and  this,  perhaps,  justifies 
me  in  making  them  prominent  in  my  present  address 
to  the  Bostonian  Society. 

However  that  may  be,  these  political  maxims  soon 
became  the  shibboleth  of  political  action  in  thirteen 
colonies,  and  were  powerful  in  bringing  on  and  car 
rying  through  the  American  Revolution.  They  now 

1  Otis's  argument  against  writs  of  assistance  was  made  in  1761, 
before  the  Superior  Court  then  sitting  in  the  Council  Chamber  of  the 
old  State  House  in  Boston,  where  the  present  address  was  delivered. 


232  POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

find  place  in  Bills  of  Rights.  They  have  shaped  con 
stitutions  and  colored  history. 

I  shall  return  to  them ;  but  first  I  wish  to  say  a 
word  about  the  class  of  epigrammatic  phrases  to  which 
they  belong. 

In  every  age  the  wise  have  sought  to  express  their 
highest  thought  and  deepest  feeling  in  apothegms. 
Men  of  science  have  their  axioms  ;  jurists,  their  legal 
maxims  respecting  the  rights  of  persons  and  of  pro 
perty  ;  the  great  divines,  their  epigrammatic  phrases 
of  doctrine ;  literary  masterpieces  are  full  of  epi 
grams  ;  and  the  common  people  have  their  proverbs, 
their  songs,  and  their  ballads.  No  class  is  without 
them,  and  none  which  is  not  profoundly  influenced  by 
them.  Better  far  in  the  van  of  battle  than  the  justice 
of  their  cause  are  the  national  airs  and  patriotic  max 
ims  of  a  people. 

"  I  knew  a  very  wise  man,"  said  Fletcher  of  Sal- 
toun,  "  who  believed  that,  if  a  man  were  permitted  to 
make  all  the  ballads,  he  need  not  care  who  should 
make  the  laws  of  a  nation."  It  were  worth  inquiry 
who  was  the  "  very  wise  man  "  whom  Fletcher  heard. 
Not  Bacon,  certainly,  for  he  was  dead  long  before 
Fletcher  was  born  ;  and  for  the  same  reason,  not  Sir 
Philip  Sidney,  though  the  thought  was  not  far  from 
Sidney's  own,  when  he  said,  "  I  never  heard  the  old 
song  of  Percy  and  Douglas  that  I  found  not  my  heart 
moved  more  than  with  a  trumpet." 

But  though  the  words  which  caught  Fletcher's  ear 
fell  not  from  the  living  lips  of  Bacon,  still  I  think  that 
in  one  of  the  most  acute  of  his  observations  he  has 
given  the  reason  why  to  song  and  ballad  rather  than 
to  maxim  or  proverb  should  be  assigned  a  higher  place 
among  those  influences  which  govern  mankind.  For 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS  233 

poetry,  he  says,  "  being  as  a  plant  that  cometh  of  the 
lust  of  the  earth,  without  a  formal  seed,  it  hath  sprung 
up  and  spread  abroad  more  than  any  other  kind.  But 
to  ascribe  unto  it  that  which  is  due  for  the  expressing 
of  affections,  passions,  corruptions,  and  customs,  we 
are  beholden  to  poets  more  than  to  the  philosophers' 
works." ! 

The  song  of  the  people  is  neither  polished  nor  pre 
cise.  Its  power  is  its  sincerity.  Academic  songs  and 
ballads  seldom  go  deep  into  the  hearts  of  the  people. 
To  reach  the  popular  heart,  they  must  spring  from  the 
people,  or  at  least  voice  their  sentiments.  Dibdin's 
sea-songs  were  worth  more  for  manning  the  royal 
navy  than  Campbell's  matchless  lyrics. 

While  song  is  true  and  sincere,  proverbs,  maxims, 
and  epigrams  seldom  express  more  than  half-truths  — 
or  truths  not  always  true.  But  their  power  is  none 
the  less  on  that  account. 

Bacon  noticed  this  also  ;  and  over  against  the  max 
ims  he  quoted  he  placed  opposing  maxims.  And 
Archbishop  Whately,  in  commenting  on  Bacon,  has 
given  examples,  such  as  these :  "  Take  care  of  the 
pence  and  the  pounds  will  take  care  of  themselves  ;  " 
"  Be  not  penny-wise  and  pound-foolish  ;  "  "  The  more 
haste  the  worse  speed  ;  "  "  Wait  awhile,  that  we  may 
make  an  end  the  sooner  ;  "  "  Take  Time  by  the  fore 
lock  ;  "  and  "  Time  and  tide  for  no  man  bide."  Cole 
ridge  noticed  in  his  day  that  "  the  rustic  whistled,  with 
equal  enthusiasm,  '  God  Save  the  King  '  and  4  Britons 
never  shall  be  slaves.'  ' 

Perhaps  no  legal  maxim  is  more  dear  to  those  of 
the  English  blood  than  Coke's  "  A  man's  house  is  his 
castle."  It  is  the  security  of  his  family,  and  associ- 

1  Advancement  of  Learning,  Book  2. 


234  POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

ated  with  home-bred  rights  and  joys,  —  a  maxim 
which  gave  occasion  to  what  Lord  Brougham  regards 
the  finest  passage  in  Pitt's  oratory  :  "  The  poorest  man 
may  in  his  cottage  bid  defiance  to  all  the  forces  of  the 
crown.  It  may  be  frail  —  its  roof  may  shake  —  the 
wind  may  blow  through  it  —  the  storm  may  enter  — 
the  rain  may  enter  —  but  the  King  of  England  cannot 
enter  !  all  his  force  dares  not  cross  the  threshold  of 
that  ruined  tenement."  x 

It  has  been  said  that  maxims  are  seldom  more  than 
half-truths  ;  and  Dr.  Johnson  thought  that  "  in  all 
pointed  sayings  some  degree  of  accuracy  must  be  sac 
rificed  to  conciseness." 

Political  maxims,  though  generally  true  to  the  spirit 
of  law,  are  often  contrary  to  its  letter,  and  oftener 
still,  while  true  to  sentiment,  are  false  to  fact;  but 
sentiment  rather  than  reason  rules  the  world. 

I  once  heard  a  distinguished  orator  scorn  and  ridi 
cule  the  often-quoted  English  constitutional  maxim 
that  "  the  king  can  do  no  wrong,"  as  though  it  were 
a  rule  of  royal  morals.  It  is  nothing  of  the  sort.  Its 
equivalent  is  and  must  be  in  every  government.  It 
merely  asserts  that  sovereignty  reposes  somewhere  ; 
and,  inasmuch  as  there  is  nothing  higher  than  the 
king  in  sovereignties,  or  the  people  in  democracies, 
the  king  in  one  case  and  the  people  in  the  other 
must  be  presumed  to  be  right.  And  therefore  the 
English  say,  "The  king  can  do  no  wrong,"  and  we 
say  that  "  The  sober  second  thought  of  the  people  is 
always  right." 

The  English  people  have  one  advantage,  for  if  the 
king  should  do  wrong  they  can  decapitate  him  —  as 
they  once  did ;  and  they  drove  another  into  exile  :  an 
1  Brougham's  Statesmen. 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS  235 

awkward  piece  of  business  for  us,  in  case  our  sovereign 
does  wrong !  The  maxim  is  a  wise  one  for  both  peo 
ples. 

Another  English  political  maxim  and  perhaps  the 
most  potent  that  ever  fell  from  English  lips  is  this, 
that  "  Englishmen  carry  English  rights  and  privileges 
with  them  to  the  ends  of  the  earth."  This  maxim 
really  expressed  the  correlation  of  allegiance  and  pro 
tection  of  English  subjects  wherever  they  might  be ; 
that  wherever  the  Englishman  went,  he  owed  inde 
feasible  allegiance  to  his  sovereign,  and  might  always 
claim  his  protection.  In  a  word,  once  an  Englishman, 
always  and  everywhere  an  Englishman.  Wherever 
he  goes,  England  requires  his  allegiance  and  may  de 
mand  his  services  ;  wherever  he  goes,  he  may  demand 
the  protection  of  his  sovereign,  and  fleets  and  armies 
fly  to  his  aid.  That  was  the  theory ;  but  our  fathers 
found  it  convenient  to  forget  half  of  the  maxim :  they 
claimed  English  protection,  but  forgot  English  alle 
giance  !  This  doctrine  Englishmen  and  their  descend 
ants  in  this  country  have  sometimes  claimed  and  some 
times  denied,  as  was  for  their  interest.  It  lay  at  the 
foundation  of  the  right  claimed  by  the  British  govern 
ment  to  impress  its  subjects  though  found  on  Ameri 
can  ships ;  and  in  1812  it  had  much  to  do  with 
bringing  on  the  war.  Our  countervailing  maxim  at 
that  time  was  "  Free  Trade  and  Sailors'  Eights." 

But  at  an  earlier  day,  whenever  British  legislation 
affected  the  colonists  unfavorably,  they  claimed  that 
they  possessed  all  the  rights  of  Englishmen  ;  that  is, 
that  whatever  rights  an  Englishman  living  in  England 
might  possess  and  enjoy,  an  Englishman  and  his  de 
scendants  living  in  America  might  possess  and  enjoy. 
An  absurd  claim.  The  maxim  meant  simply  this  and 


236  POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

no  more :  that  the  King's  subjects  born  in  America, 
on  going  to  England,  should  possess  and  enjoy  all 
those  rights  and  privileges  that  Englishmen  born  in 
England  and  living  there  might  possess  and  enjoy. 
"We  have  incorporated  its  just  interpretation  into  our 
Constitution  :  that  "  The  citizens  of  each  State  shall 
be  entitled  to  all  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens 
in  the  several  States." l 

That  is,  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts  going  to  South 
Carolina,  for  example,  shall  be  entitled  to  all  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  a  citizen  of  that  State.  It  is 
hardly  necessary  to  add  that  it  does  not  mean  that  a 
citizen  of  Massachusetts  going  to  South  Carolina  car 
ries  with  him  all  or  any  of  the  privileges  he  enjoyed 
in  Massachusetts,  though  that  was  at  one  time  claimed. 

But  whatever  its  true  meaning,  this  maxim  has  done 
more  than  any  other  to  make  England,  next  to  Rome, 
the  greatest  power  for  civilization  the  world  ever  saw. 
It  encouraged  the  spirit  of  colonization.  For  when 
the  colonists  went  forth,  the  British  Lion  stalked  be 
fore  them,  and  over  them  floated  the  protecting  ban 
ner  of  England.  This  nerved  their  hearts  in  distant 
and  perilous  expeditions  which  other  people  feared  to 
make ;  and  it  inspired  them  with  courage  and  con 
stancy  which  no  other  people  exhibited.  It  lent  keen 
ness  to  the  edge,  and  firmness  to  the  temper  of  their 
swords.  They  went  forth  with  insolence,  and  often 
acted  with  brutality,  as  well  as  with  courage  and  self- 
reliance.  They  assumed  that  they  had  rights  which 
it  would  be  preposterous  for  Spaniards,  Frenchmen,  or 
Dutchmen  to  claim ;  but  they  braved  the  perils  of  the 
sea  and  of  savage  countries,  and  the  sun  now  never 
sets  on  English  dominions ! 

1  Art.  IV.  Sec.  ii. 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS  237 

We  Americans,  of  all  people,  should  be  the  last  to 
quarrel  with  the  pretentious  claims  of  this  English 
maxim  ;  for  without  its  influence  in  arousing  the  spirit 
of  adventure  and  sustaining  the  colonists  amidst  the 
perils  they  encountered,  it  is  more  than  doubtful 
whether  the  old  thirteen  colonies  would  have  been  set 
tled  by  Englishmen  ;  and  it  is  certain  that  the  day  of 
their  becoming  free  and  independent  States  would 
have  been  long  postponed ;  for  no  sooner  did  our  fore 
fathers  feel  the  restrictive  commercial  policy  of  Eng 
land  than  they  began  to  claim  the  rights  of  Englishmen. 
Their  claim  was,  that  whatever  rights  and  privileges 
Englishmen  living  in  England  might  possess  and  en 
joy,  the  same  rights  Englishmen  and  their  descendants 
living  in  America  should  possess  and  enjoy.  This  was 
their  interpretation  of  this  maxim  in  the  days  of  John 
Winthrop ;'  it  was  the  same  in  the  days  of  Samuel 
Adams ;  and  by  the  Declaration  of  Independence  they 
made  it  good.  And  to-day,  all  rights  and  privileges 
which  we  obtained  by  war,  and  incorporated  in  our 
State  and  national  constitutions,  are  only  the  "  rights 
and  privileges  which  followed  Englishmen  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth." 

Another  maxim  which  did  us  royal  service  from  a 
very  early  period,  and  contributed  more  than  any  sen 
timent  to  bring  on  and  carry  us  through  the  war  of 
the  Revolution,  was  the  cry  which  flew  from  one  end 
of  the  continent  to  the  other  —  "  No  Representation, 
No  Taxation." 

This  is  generally  thought  to  have  originated  in  the 
days  of  the  Stamp  Act ;  but  in  1647,  one  hundred  and 
eighteen  years  before,  Edward  Winslow  wrote  :  "  If  the 
Parliament  of  England  should  impose  laws  upon  us, 
having  no  burgesses  in  their  House  of  Commons,  not 


238  POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

capable  of  a  summons  by  reason  of  the  vast  distance 
of  the  ocean,  being  three  thousand  miles  from  London, 
then  we  should  lose  the  liberty  and  freedom  I  con 
ceived  of  English  indeed."  l  And  the  General  Court 
of  Massachusetts,  October  2,  1678,  said,  "  The  sub 
jects  of  his  majesty  here  being  not  represented  in 
Parliament,  so  we  have  not  looked  at  ourselves  to  be 
impeded  in  our  trade "  by  the  Navigation  Acts.2 
Chalmers  says  this  was  the  first  announcement  of  the 
doctrine.3 

I  hardly  need  say  to  one  conversant  with  English 
constitutional  history  that  the  maxim  had  no  founda 
tion  in  English  law  or  practice ;  for  at  the  date  of 
the  American  Revolution  not  one  ninth  of  the  Eng 
lish  people  had  any  voice  in  choosing  the  represen 
tatives  who  made  laws  for  them  ;  nor  until  the  Re 
form  Bill  of  1832  had  such  great  cities  as  Liverpool 
and  Manchester  any  direct  representation  in  Parlia 
ment. 

Though  the  Massachusetts  people  held  their  lands 
as  of  gavelkind  in  Kent,  they  did  not  accept  as  their 
virtual  representative  an  English  member  returned  to 
the  House  of  Commons  from  a  Kentish  borough  — 
though  such  a  member  by  the  English  doctrine  repre 
sented  all  England  and  the  colonies  as  well. 

Nevertheless,  the  maxim  was  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Constitution,  and  that  was  sufficient  for  the  colonists 
and  even  for  some  of  their  friends  in  England.4  Poli 
tical  maxims,  whether  true  or  false,  either  with  or 

1  Palfrey,  ii.  178,  n. ;  v.  244,  270,  274. 

2  Massachusetts  Eecords,  v.  200. 

8  Annals,  439 ;  Hutchinson,  i.  322 ;  Memorial  History  of  Boston,  i. 
367. 

4  Campbell's  Lives  of  the  Lord  Chancellors  (Phila.,  1848,  edition), 
v.  210,  211,  220,  229,  243,  253,  429. 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS  239 

without  limitation,  have  generally  been  construed  to 
promote  justice  —  not  to  thwart  justice.1 

The  colonists  claimed  the  rights  of  Englishmen,  it 
is  true ;  but  when  their  Tory  fellow-citizens  —  no 
matter  how  respectable  —  invoked  those  rights  to  pro 
mote  ends  not  agreeable  to  public  sentiment,  their 
appeal  often  ended  in  a  coat  of  tar  and  feathers ;  and 
instead  of  the  right  of  free  speech,  they  were  privi 
leged  to  a  free  ride  on  a  rail.  So  when  the  colonists 
had  achieved  their  independence,  they  listened  with 
no  patience  to  those  political  maxims  which  had  been 
so  efficient  in  raising  the  people  to  resist  the  king's 
armies.  These  maxims  were  a  good  cry  against  the 
king's  government  which  they  thought  oppressive,  but 
not  against  their  own,  though  the  people  were  in  dis 
tress,  as  in  the  days  of  Shays's  rebellion. 

It  remains  to  speak  of  maxims  which  have  gained 
currency,  entered  into  the  national  life  and  influenced 
the  conduct  of  the  people  in  our  own  times. 

For  a  people  great  in  many  forms  of  literature,  the 
English  have  been  singularly  deficient  in  the  gift  of 
epigrammatic  expression.  Few  of  their  proverbs  ori 
ginated  among  themselves,  and  compared  with  the 
French  they  lack  those  pointed  sayings  which  every 
one  admires  but  which  few  are  capable  of  producing. 

Warburton's  fine  saying  is  one  exception.  In  the 
House  of  Lords,  on  the  occasion  of  some  angry  dis 
pute  which  had  arisen  between  a  peer  of  noble  family 
and  one  of  a  new  creation,  he  said  that  "  high  birth 
was  a  thing  which  he  never  knew  any  one  to  dispar 
age  except  those  who  had  it  not ;  and  he  never  knew 
any  one  to  make  a  boast  of  it  who  had  anything  else 
to  be  proud  of."  2 

1  See  Burke  in  Brougham's  Statesmen,  2  Whately's  Bacon. 


240  POLITICAL  MAXIMS 

There  is,  however,  one  patriotic  maxim  which,  con 
sidering  its  author,  the  circumstances  under  which  it 
was  uttered,  and  the  immediate  and  lasting  effects  it 
produced,  is  worthy  of  a  place  among  the  great  say 
ings  of  the  best  ages.  Indeed,  neither  in  English  nor 
in  any  other  language  do  I  know  any  words  not  purely 
literary  or  moral  (and  those  I  am  about  to  quote  are 
essentially  both),  which  an  Englishman  might  have 
been  so  proud  to  have  uttered,  as  Nelson's  signal 
from  the  deck  of  the  Victory  at  Trafalgar,  "  England 
expects  every  man  to  do  his  duty."  Their  immediate 
effect  is  historical ;  nor  do  I  think  England  has  ever 
forgotten  them  :  certainly  her  soldiers  with  Welling 
ton  in  his  Peninsula  campaign  did  not;  nor  those 
who  held  the  mangled  but  steadfast  squares  on  the 
blood-stained  height.*  of  Waterloo,  nor  those  others, 
of  whom  it  was  said :  — 

"  Theirs  not  to  make  reply, 
Theirs  not  to  reason  why, 
Theirs  but  to  do  and  die. 
Into  the  Valley  of  Death 
Rode  the  Six  Hundred ;  " 

nor  those  who  withstood  the  siege  of  Lucknow ;  nor 
those  who  followed  Gordon  into  the  Soudan.1 

I  would  not  over-estimate  the  effects  of  those  words 
on  any  part  of  the  English  people  ;  but  it  is  notice 
able  that  not  long  after  their  utterance  there  came 
into  English  literature,  thought,  and  conduct,  a  seri 
ousness,  an  elevation  and  devotion  to  high  ideals,  as 
exhibited  by  Arnold  of  Rugby,  Newman,  Maurice, 

1  "  Where  even  the  common  soldier  dares  force  a  passage  for  his 
comrades  by  gathering  up  the  bayonets  of  the  enemy  into  his  own 
breast,  because  his  country  expected  every  man  to  do  his  duty,  and  this 
not  after  he  has  been  hardened  by  habit,  but,  as  probably,  in  his  first 
battle."  Coleridge's  Friend,  Vol.  II.  Essay  ix. 


POLITICAL  MAXIMS  241 

Kobertson,  Tennyson,  and  others,  which  have  made 
her  history  for  the  last  sixty  years,  upon  the  whole, 
the  most  illustrious  in  England's  annals. 

Our  own  countrymen  have  said  memorable  words, 
some  of  which  at  least  became  household  words. 

When  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney  said  to  Talley 
rand  "  Millions  for  defense  but  not  one  cent  for  tri 
bute,"  he  spoke  for  the  nation;  and  so  spoke  Law 
rence  dying  on  the  deck  of  the  Chesapeake,  in  those 
pathetic  words,  "  Don't  give  upjbheship."  The  most 
venerable  and  illustrious  of  living  Americans,1  still 
to  be  occasionally  seen  in  our  streets,  once  gave  as  a 
sentiment,  "  Our  country  however  bounded."  A  pa 
triotic  maxim,  though  in  the  heat  of  party  politics  I 
believe  it  subjected  its  author  to  some  obloquy ;  and 
so  did  Seward's  "  Irrepressible  conflict "  and  his 
"Law  higher  than  the  Constitution."  Sumner's 
"  Nothing  is  settled  until  it  is  settled  rightly  "  is  a 
moral  rather  than  a  political  maxim  ;  and  Chase's 
"  An  indestructible  union  of  indestructible  states," 
though  constitutionally  true,  lacks  the  ring  that 
reaches  the  popular  heart.  Jefferson's  self-evident 
truths  formulated  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
were  addressed  to  the  race  and  to  the  ages,  and  there 
fore  belong  rather  to  political  philosophy  than  to 
patriotic  maxims. 

But  we,  more  than  other  English-speaking  people, 
have  patriotic  maxims  which  satisfy  the  head  of  the 
statesman  and  the  heart  of  the  people.  What  every 
American  ought  to  remember,  and  some  time  will,  is 
that  one,  once  a  citizen  here,  but  now  sleeping  by  the 
sea  at  Marshfield,  made,  —  not  indeed  the  songs  of 
the  people,  but  what  are  next  best,  —  all  our  patriotic 
1  Robert  C.  Winthrop,  who  died  November  16,  1894. 


242  POLITICAL   MAXIMS 

maxims  which  stir  the  heart  and  form  popular  senti 
ment;  for  all  such  in  this  century  (save  the  dying 
Lawrence's  "  Don't  give  up  the  ship  ")  sprang  from  the 
lips  of  the  great  orator.  John  Adams  had  said,  "  Sink 
or  swim,  survive  or  perish,  I  give  my  heart  and  my 
hand  to  this  vote ;"  and  when  the  Fourth  of  July 
bells  pealed  just  before  he  died,  he  exclaimed,  "  Inde 
pendence  forever."  But  from  Webster's  lips  in  Fan- 
euil  Hall,  these  words  winged  their  way  to  the  heart 
of  the  nation.  Wholly  his  own  were  those  other 
words,  "  Our  country,  our  whole  country,  and  nothing 
but  our  country ;"  "  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  for 
ever,  one  and  inseparable ;  "  "  The  people's  govern 
ment,  made  for  the  people,  made  by  the  people,  and 
accountable  to  the  people."  These  last  express  with 
precision  Webster's  theory  of  the  national  govern 
ment,  and  Lincoln's  also,  for  he  adopted  them  in  his 
immortal  speech  on  the  field  of  Gettysburg,  and  they 
are  now  quoted  oftener  than  any  of  his  own  words. 
Nelson's  "England  expects  every  man  to  do  his 
duty  "  wrought  nobly  at  Trafalgar,  and  has  since  in 
spired  her  sons  to  noble  deeds ;  but  Webster's  words 
—  words  which  winged  the  shot  that  Grant  fired  — 
wrought  results  vastly  greater  than  those  of  the 
famous  sea-fight. 

Great  services  may  be  forgotten,  but  maxims  defin 
ing  the  patriotic  relations  of  the  people  to  their  coun 
try,  and  of  the  government  to  the  people,  and  of  both 
to  civil  liberty  —  maxims  which  sank  deep  into  the 
national  heart  in  the  day  of  their  utterance,  and  since 
have  been  a  saving  power  —  are  not  likely  to  be  for 
gotten  ;  nor  is  Daniel  Webster,  from  whose  fertile 
brain  and  patriotic  heart  they  all  sprang. 


KEMAEKS 

AT  THE  DINNER  OF  THE   SONS  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  REVOLUTION 

CONCORD,  MASSACHUSETTS,  APRIL    19,   1894 


REMARKS  BEFORE  THE  SONS  OF  THE 
AMERICAN   REVOLUTION 

APRIL  19,  1894 


IT  is  a  high  honor  for  me,  as  I  gratefully  think, 
Sons  of  the  American  Revolution,  though  not  of  your 
number,  nevertheless,  to  join  with  you  as  a  guest  in 
the  celebration  of  April  19,  1775. 

That  was  indeed  a  day  made  forever  memorable  by 
events  of  great  import  to  that  age  and  people,  and  as 
the  years  roll  on,  not  unlikely  to  be  counted  among 
those  events  which  will  affect  the  political  condition 
of  no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  human  race. 

It  was  neither  unexpected  nor  unprepared  for. 
The  Provincial  Congress,  adjourned  from  Salem,  met 
at  Concord,  in  this  venerable  church  edifice,  October 
11,  1774.  As  I  look  over  the  roll  of  its  members 
gathered  from  all  parts  of  the  province,  and  recall 
the  earlier  and  later  history  of  some  of  the  most  dis 
tinguished  of  them,  it  was,  as  it  appears  to  me,  one  of 
the  ablest  bodies  of  statesmen  ever  assembled  on 
Massachusetts  soil ;  nor  am  I  unmindful  of  later 
representative  bodies,  nor  even  of  the  three  great 
conventions  assembled  for  the  formation  or  amend 
ment  of  the  constitution  of  the  Commonwealth. 
Among  its  members  were  Thomas  Gushing,  Samuel 
Adams,  John  Hancock,  Joseph  Warren,  William 
Heath,  Benjamin  Lincoln  —  the  last  two  afterwards 


246  CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1894 

major-generals  in  the  Continental  Army  —  Samuel 
Dexter  the  elder,  John  Pickering,  Samuel  Holten, 
Elbridge  Gerry,  Samuel  Osgood,  Nathaniel  Peaslee 
Sargent,  Nathaniel  Gorham,  Richard  Devens,  James 
Prescott,  Joseph  Hawley,  James  Warren,  George 
Partridge,  Robert  Treat  Paine,  William  Baylies, 
James  Sullivan,  Timothy  Bigelow,  Jedediah  Foster, 
Joseph  Henshaw,  Artemas  Ward,  Moses  Gill,  Samuel 
Freeman,  Samuel  Thompson,  John  Fellows,  and  John 
Pater  son.  John  Hancock  was  President  and  Benja 
min  Lincoln  Secretary. 

Such  were  some  of  the  men.  This  was  some  of  their 
work :  By  October  12  the  Congress  was  fully  organ 
ized,  and  on  the  13th  it  addressed  Governor  Gage.  It 
recognized  preparations  for  war  in  "  the  rigorous 
execution  of  the  Port  Bill ; "  in  the  "  acts  for  altering 
the  charter  and  the  administration  of  justice  in  the 
colony,"  manifestly  designed  to  abridge  the  people  of 
their  rights ;  "  in  the  number  of  troops  in  the  capital, 
increased  by  daily  accessions  drawn  from  the  whole 
continent,  together  with  the  formidable  and  hostile 
preparations  you  are  making  on  Boston  neck,"  —  mea 
sures  which  "  greatly  endanger  the  lives,  liberties,  and 
properties,  not  only  of  our  brethren  in  the  town  of 
Boston,  but  of  this  province  in  general."  The  Con 
gress  met  the  crisis  with  a  prescience,  wisdom,  and 
practical  skill  to  promote  the  popular  interests  and  to 
neutralize  the  efforts  of  the  loyalists,  never  surpassed 
and  seldom  equaled  ;  and  within  sixteen  days  arranged 
to  seize  the  revenues  of  the  province ;  practically  an 
nulled  the  acts  of  1774  subverting  the  charter ;  voted 
to  inquire  into  the  state  of  the  provincial  army,  to 
appoint  a  Committee  of  Safety,  to  send  an  agent  to 
Canada  to  secure  its  cooperation,  "  to  provide  a  stock 


CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1894  247 

of  powder,  ordnance,  and  ordnance  stores  now ;  "  re 
commended  "  that  the  militia  companies  elect  officers, 
equip,  and  hold  themselves  in  readiness,  on  the  short 
est  notice  from  the  Committee  of  Safety,  to  march  to 
the  place  of  rendezvous,"  and  "  for  the  choice  of  three 
general  officers."  In  a  word,  the  Provincial  Congress 
had  recognized  the  probability  of  war  and  prepared 
for  it  six  months  before  April  19,  1775. 

But  this  is  not  all.  Hancock,  Adams,  Gerry  and 
Paine,  in  May,  1775,  fresh  from  their  labors  at  Con 
cord,  were  in  the  Continental  Congress  at  Philadel 
phia,  and,  as  the  journals  of  that  body  warrant  me  in 
saying,  made  possible,  on  a  wider  theatre  of  continen 
tal  affairs,  that  which  was  done  six  months  earlier  in 
this  little  town  of  Concord. 

Do  we  claim  too  much,  therefore,  in  saying  that 
this  edifice  in  which  the  Provincial  Congress  sat,  and 
in  which  we  are  now  sitting,  —  sacred  alike  to  religion 
and  liberty,  —  in  which  the  substantial  foundations  of 
independence  were  laid  in  1774,  ought  to  be  no  less 
dear  to  New  Englanders,  at  least,  than  that  hall  in 
Philadelphia  in  which  Independence  was  declared 
July  4,  1776?  Citizens  of  Concord,  this  is  your 
shrine.  It  ought  to  be  the  shrine  of  a  nation.  Invoke 
for  it  Divine  protection  from  lightning  and  tempest ; 
provide  for  it  protection  from  fire  and  the  wasting 
tooth  of  time ! 

Of  the  events  of  April  19,  1775,  I  need  say  but 
little.  They  have  passed  into  history.  Every  year 
they  are  recounted  in  our  public  journals.  They  are 
household  words. 

My  purpose  is  not  to  rehearse  them,  but  to  ask 
what  these  events  meant  for  the  colonists  at  the  time  ; 
what  they  have  since  meant,  and  what  they  may  mean 


248  CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1894 

for  future  ages.  On  the  first  question  I  have  some 
direct  authentic  intelligence  from  an  actor  in  those 
scenes. 

When  the  action  at  Lexington  on  the  morning  of 
the  19th  was  known  at  Danvers,  the  minute  men  there, 
under  the  lead  of  Captain  Gideon  Foster,  made  that 
memorable  march  —  or  run,  rather  —  of  sixteen  miles 
in  four  hours,  and  struck  Percy's  flying  column  at 
West  Cambridge.  Brave  but  incautious  in  flanking 
the  red-coats,  they  were  flanked  themselves  and  badly 
pinched,  leaving  seven  dead,  two  wounded,  and  one 
missing.  Among  those  who  escaped  was  Levi  Pres 
ton,  afterwards  known  as  Captain  Levi  Preston. 

When  I  was  about  twenty-one  and  Captain  Preston 
about  ninety-one,  I  "  interviewed "  him  as  to  what 
he  did  and  thought  sixty-seven  years  before,  on  April 
19,  1775 ;  and  now,  fifty-two  years  later,  I  make  my 
report  —  a  little  belated  perhaps,  but  not  too  late  I 
trust  for  the  morning  papers  ! 

At  that  time,  of  course,  I  knew  all  about  the 
American  Kevolution  —  far  more  than  I  do  now! 
And  if  I  now  know  anything  truly,  it  is  chiefly  owing 
to  what  I  have  since  forgotten  of  the  histories  of  that 
event  then  popular. 

With  an  assurance  passing  even  that  of  the  mod 
ern  interviewer  —  if  that  were  possible  —  I  began  : 
"  Captain  Preston,  why  did  you  go  to  the  Concord 
Fight,  the  19th  of  April,  1775  ?  "  The  old  man,  bowed 
beneath  the  weight  of  years,  raised  himself  upright, 
and  turning  to  me  said  :  "  Why  did  I  go  ?  "  "  Yes," 
I  replied ;  "  my  histories  tell  me  that  you  men  of  the 
Revolution  took  up  arms  against  '  intolerable  oppres 
sions.'  "  "  What  were  they  ?  Oppressions  ?  I  did  n't 
feel  them."  "  What,  were  you  not  oppressed  by  the 


CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1894  249 

Stamp  Act?"  "I  never  saw  one  of  those  stamps, 
and  always  understood  that  Governor  Bernard  put 
them  all  in  Castle  William.  I  am  certain  I  never 
paid  a  penny  for  one  of  them."  "  Well,  what  then 
about  the  tea-tax  ?  "  "  Tea-tax !  I  never  drank  a  drop 
of  the  stuff;  the  boys  threw  it  all  overboard."  "Then 
I  suppose  you  had  been  reading  Harrington  or  Sid 
ney  and  Locke  about  the  eternal  principles  of  liberty." 
"  Never  heard  of  'em.  We  read  only  the  Bible,  the 
Catechism,  Watts's  Psalms  and  Hymns,  and  the  Al 
manack."  "Well,  then,  what  was  the  matter?  and 
what  did  you  mean  in  going  to  the  fight?  "  "  Young 
man,  what  we  meant  in  going  for  those  red-coats  was 
this :  we  always  had  governed  ourselves,  and  we 
always  meant  to.  They  did  n't  mean  we  should." 

And  that,  gentlemen,  is  the  ultimate  philosophy  of 
the  American  Revolution.  It  correctly  assigns  its 
underlying  cause,  it  explains  and  accounts  for  the 
action  of  the  patriotic  party.  Doubtless  there  were 
subsidiary  causes  affecting  localities  and  interests, 
especially  on  the  sea-coast  and  in  larger  commercial 
towns ;  but  the  yeomanry  of  the  interior  felt  none  of 
those  grievances.  And  yet,  from  Maine  to  Georgia, 
they  were  among  the  first  to  resist  the  British  preten 
sions.  Thomas  Paine  once  said  something  like  this : 
"  The  British  ministry  were  too  jealous  of  the  colo 
nists  to  govern  them  justly,  too  ignorant  to  govern 
them  well,  and  too  far  away  to  govern  them  at  all." 
That  puts  the  matter  very  neatly ;  but  Levi  Preston, 
the  Danvers  yeoman,  put  it  far  better ;  for  no  other 
words  known  to  me  ever  expressed  the  actual  con 
dition  of  affairs  with  more  historic  truth  or  more 
tersely.  For  the  attitude  of  the  colonists  was  not 
that  of  slaves  seeking  liberty,  but  of  freemen  —  free- 


250  CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1894 

men  for  five  generations  —  resisting  political  servi 
tude.  And  as  Mr.  Webster  (who  must  often  have 
conversed  with  his  father  on  the  subject)  once  said, 
with  his  usual  historical  accuracy  and  with  a  felicity 
all  his  own :  "  While  actual  suffering  was  yet  afar  * 
off  .  .  .  they  went  to  war  against  a  preamble.  They 
fought  seven  years  against  a  declaration."  The  pre 
amble  was  that  of  the  Stamp  Act :  "  Whereas  it  is 
necessary  to  raise  a  revenue  from  the  colonies  for 
their  defense."  The  declaration  was,  "  that  the  power 
of  Parliament  over  the  colonies  extends  to  all  cases 
whatever." 

Yes,  the  men  at  the  North  Bridge  knew  well 
enough  what  it  meant  to  them,  but  not  quite  so  well 
what  it  means  to  us  ;  the  men  of  '61  explained 
that  quite  fully ;  but  neither  the  men  of  '61  knew 
nor  do  we  who  survive  know  just  what  it  may  mean 
to  future  ages.  Few  events  in  the  world's  history 
have  been  of  more  tremendous  consequences  than 
those  of  the  19th  of  April,  1775  ;  and  nothing  but  a 
completed  cycle  in  the  world's  history  will  reveal  their 
full  significance. 

It  was  no  new  thing  to  overthrow  dynasties  or  to 
disrupt  empires.  It  was  no  new  thing  to  make  con 
quests  or  to  repel  invasions.  But  the  battle-fields  on 
which  the  condition  of  any  considerable  part  of  the 
human  race  has  been  permanently  changed  are  few ; 
and  fewer  still  those  on  which  has  been  instituted  a 
new  principle  of  government  apparently  destined  to 
affect  the  whole  human  race.  Thermopylae  saved  for 
a  time  the  civilization  of  Greece,  but  it  did  not  ad 
vance  the  civilization  of  the  world.  Waterloo  merely 
restored  the  old  status  of  Europe.  The  wars  of  the 
great  English  Revolution  did  not  bring  into  the  Brit- 


CONCORD,  APRIL  19,  1894  251 

ish  constitution  true  representative  government  — 
that  came  two  centuries  later  with  the  Reform  Bill  of 
1832.  But  the  Concord  fight,  as  Levi  Preston  sub 
stantially  said,  preserved,  if  it  did  not  inaugurate, 
what  Webster  called  "  a  government  of  the  people, 
for  the  people,  and  accountable  to  the  people." 

The  19th  of  April,  1775,  was  indeed  notable  in  the 
progress  of  national  autonomy  and  representative  gov 
ernment.  Other  days  come  and  go.  The  sun  rises 
and  hastens  to  its  setting.  But  on  the  19th  of  April 
no  second  morn  will  rise.  Its  sun  once  risen  never 
set.  It  still  rides  high  and  clear.  Its  prescribed 
arc  is  not  through  the  visible  heavens,  but  over  the 
ages ! 

A  mile  away  from  us  is  the  North  Bridge.  We 
are  familiar  with  the  scene  and  the  incidents  which 
make  it  memorable.  We  see  Major  Buttrick  with 
his  little  band  of  farmers  moving  down  to  dislodge 
Captain  Laurie's  company.  We  see  Isaac  Davis  and 
Abner  Hosmer  fall.  We  hear  Major  Butterick  ex 
claim,  "  Fire,  fellow  soldiers,  for  God's  sake,  fire ! " 
That  was  the  fight  at  Concord  Bridge.  That  was  the 
"  shot  heard  round  the  world,"  the  shot  that  will  re 
sound  through  the  ages,  forever  vibrate  in  the  air, 
forever  quicken  the  pulses  of  the  human  race. 


PALFREY'S  PEOPLE  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 

REPEINTED  FROM  "  THE  NATION  "  OF  JULY  10,  1890 


PALFREY'S  PEOPLE  OF  NEW  ENGLAND 


DK.  PALFEEY'S  diligence  has  not  added  much  that 
is  essential  to  what  was  known  about  the  period 
covered  by  his  fifth  volume.  The  field  had  been  too 
thoroughly  reaped  for  profitable  gleaning,  and  his 
views  on  American  history  too  often  expressed  to  war 
rant  expectations  of  novel  treatment.  It  is  a  com 
pact  and  convenient  resume  of  the  history  of  the 
"  Great  Awakening,"  the  "  French  Wars,"  and  of  the 
events  which  led  to  the  outbreak  at  Lexington  in 
1775.  And  it  is  something  more  :  it  completes  Dr. 
Palfrey's  "  History  of  New  England,"  one  of  the  most 
considerable  historical  works  coming  from  any  Amer 
ican.  Few  historians  have  shown  greater  industry 
in  gathering  original  materials,  or  a  firmer  grasp  of 
complicated  masses  of  facts,  or  greater  skill  in  arran 
ging  them  in  perspicuous  order  and  presenting  them 
in  a  narrative  always  clear  and  often  felicitous. 

Dr.  Palfrey's  scheme  of  a  history  of  New  England 
was  full  of  difficulties.  The  people  of  the  New  Eng 
land  colonies  were  of  the  same  race,  it  is  true,  and 
doubtless  of  a  similar  way  of  thinking  on  political  and 
theological  questions ;  but  from  the  outset  diversities 
of  opinion  or  interest,  or  both,  led  them  to  seek  dif 
ferent  localities  in  which  to  develop  their  several  au 
tonomies.  Nevertheless,  from  the  coming  of  the  Pil 
grims  to  the  withdrawal  of  Washington's  army  from 


256  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

Boston  in  1776,  the  watersheds  of  New  England's  his 
tory  inclined  towards  Boston  Bay,  and  in  Massachu 
setts  was  the  main  stream  to  which  all  other  streams 
were  affluent.  But  Dr.  Palfrey's  purpose  was  wider 
than  is  implied  by  his  title:  not  merely  to  write  a 
history  of  the  several  colonies  as  organized  political 
bodies,  but  "  the  history  of  the  people  of  New  Eng 
land,"  and,  as  we  learn  from  the  preface  of  his  last 
volume,  to  show  that  "  the  work  which  in  five  genera 
tions  was  done  in  New  England  for  the  continent  and 
the  world,  was  done  by  Englishmen  of  Puritan  train 
ing,"  and  that, "  as  far  as  human  judgment  may  trust 
itself,  no  other  class  of  men  contemporary  with  them 
was  equal  to  the  achievement." 

This  makes  Dr.  Palfrey's  "  History  of  New  England" 
quite  another  matter.  It  no  longer  primarily  con 
cerns  the  foundation  and  erection  of  States,  but  the 
original  and  developing  character  of  the  people,  and 
the  ideas,  principles,  and  conduct  of  those  who  did 
what  no  five  generations  of  their  contemporaries  had 
done,  nor  as  Dr.  Palfrey  thinks  could  have  done. 
Assured  of  his  purpose  to  set  this  forth,  his  reader 
reviews  his  entire  history  with  new  interest;  and  if 
not  a  descendant  of  the  New  England  Puritans,  then 
with  pardonable  scrutiny  of  the  facts,  and  of  Dr. 
Palfrey's  qualifications  for  pronouncing  a  judgment 
so  affrontive.  Even  those  who  may  be  supposed  to 
accept  it  most  complacently  are  aware  that  though 
history  is  not  science,  nevertheless,  the  writer  of  it  is 
amenable  to  the  laws  of  scientific  investigation.  If 
his  insight  is  at  fault,  or  his  methods  uncritical,  or 
his  statements  of  facts  one-sided,  or  he  is  blinded  by 
prejudice,  his  work  will  not  be  accepted  as  final. 

For   writing    this    history    Dr.    Palfrey   possessed 


PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND  257 

many  qualifications,  but  his  defects  were  serious. 
Without  originality  or  special  historical  insight,  he 
accepted  the  conventional  theory  of  New  England 
civilization,  and  did  not  go  very  far  beneath  the  sur 
face,  or  deal  satisfactorily  with  facts  which  did  not 
agree  with  his  preconceived  notions.  The  history  of 
the  New  England  colonies  rests  on  patents,  charters, 
or  royal  commissions  ;  and  for  the  interpretation  of 
these,  legal  training  or  natural  legal  insight,  such  as 
Belknap,  Trumbull,  Ramsay,  and  Deane  possessed,  is 
indispensable.  Dr.  Palfrey  lacked  both,  and  his  consti 
tutional  discussions  do  not  command  respect.  His  im 
agination  formed  no  pictures  of  domestic  or  social  life, 
and  we  turn  his  pages  in  vain  for  the  causes  which 
in  five  generations  changed  Englishmen  to  Yankees, 
or  to  learn  how,  for  example,  living  amid  scenes  of 
danger,  they  lost  their  inheritance  of  British  pluck, 
and  at  the  same  time  managed  to  preserve  their  moral 
courage  and  stamina  unimpaired  while  acquiring 
wealth  by  slave-trading,  piracy  thinly  disguised  as  pri 
vateering,  and  smuggling. 

He  says  of  the  Puritans  that  "  the  rank,  the  wealth, 
the  chivalry,  the  genius,  the  learning,  the  accomplish 
ments,  the  social  refinements  and  elegances  of  the  time 
were  largely  represented  in  their  ranks.  .  .  .  The 
Earls  of  Leicester,  Bedford,  Huntington,  and  War 
wick,  Sir  Nicholas  Bacon,  his  greater  son,  Walsing- 
ham,  Burleigh,  Mildmay,  Sadler,  Knollys,  were  spe 
cimens  of  a  host  of  eminent  men  more  or  less  friendly 
to  or  tolerant  of  Puritanism."  The  wealth  of  Eng 
land,  he  adds,  was  on  the  side  of  the  Puritans,  and  so 
were  many  of  the  landed  aristocracy,  many  of  high 
rank  in  the  army  and  navy ;  and  if  few  of  the  Eliz 
abethan  dramatists  or  writers  of  lighter  literature  are 


258  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

found  among  them,  they  may  justly  claim  such  names 
as  Selden,  Lightfoot,  Gale,  and  Owen,  and  such  poets 
as  Spenser,  Milton,  and  Marvell.  Nor  were  they 
wanting  in  the  amenities  and  graces  of  social  life  ; 
and  he  records  with  satisfaction  that  Colonel  Hutchin- 
son  could  dance  and  fence,  loved  music  and  played 
the  viol,  shot  guns  and  bows,  and  delighted  in  paint 
ing,  graving,  and  the  liberal  arts.  He  completes  what 
he  has  to  say  about  the  Puritan  by  adding  that  he  was 
"a  Scripturist,"  "  a  strict  moralist,"  and  "in  politics, 
the  liberal  of  his  day." 

The  reader  acquainted  with  the  character  of  the 
New  England  Puritans  is  ready  to  ask  what  all  this 
has  to  do  with  them.  If  this  was  intended  as  a  de 
scription  of  them,  and  there  is  no  other,  nothing  could 
be  more  misleading,  or  could  more  strikingly  mark  the 
uncritical  methods  of  the  historian.  Puritans  of  this 
stamp  were  not  the  founders  of  New  England,  and 
they  dropped  out  of  English  affairs  even,  with  the 
coming  of  Cromwell  and  his  Ironsides.  A  few  of 
them  came  over,  but  not  to  stay.  Neither  the  society 
in  which  they  found  themselves,  nor  the  work  for  them 
to  do,  was  to  their  mind. 

Doubtless  Puritanism  divided  English  society  by  a 
vertical  line,  on  both  sides  of  which  were  men  of  all 
classes  and  conditions.  So  far  Dr.  Palfrey  is  accu 
rate.  But  there  was  difference  in  Puritans.  Those 
who  came  to  New  England  formed  a  horizontal  stra 
tum,  not  a  vertical  section,  of  English  society.  They 
were  selected  Puritans :  above  them,  the  nobility  and 
the  gentry  ;  below  them,  the  peasantry  and  the  rabble. 
Among  them  were  two  or  three  families  of  rank,  and 
a  few  conventional  gentlemen,  who  either  died  early 
or  returned  to  England.  No  poets  came  ;  none  ad- 


PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND  259 

dieted  to  art,  science,  or  literature,  save  theological ; 
none  distinguished  in  statesmanship  or  arms,  and  but 
few  who  led  the  social  life  of  Lincolnshire  or  of  Suf 
folk.  Some  of  their  leaders  were  men  of  affairs  and 
acquainted  with  law ;  a  larger  number  were  Calvinis- 
tic  clergymen,  and  a  half  dozen  had  some  pretensions 
to  gentility ;  but  mainly  they  were  yeomen,  trades 
people,  mechanics,  and  servants. 

Dr.  Palfrey  says  that  "  the  spirit  of  Puritanism  was 
as  old  as  the  truth  and  manliness  of  England."  This 
is  quite  true.  Dr.  Storrs  has  just  told  us  that  Moses, 
and  several  of  the  patriarchs,  and  Christ,  and  many 
notable  pagans  were  Puritans.  This  is  also  true. 
But  such  truths  do  not  describe  the  character  or  the 
work  of  those  who  came  to  New  England.  We  may 
imagine,  if  we  will,  the  statesmen,  poets,  and  divines 
whom  Dr.  Palfrey  has  mentioned,  engaged  in  ordain 
ing  party  fences,  the  ringing  of  swine,  or  in  an  expe 
dition  against  the  Pequots  and  burning  them  when 
found,  or  in  trying  Mrs.  Hutchinson  for  heresy,  or  in 
specting  Mary  Dyer's  monstrous  birth  for  evidence 
of  a  special  providence,  or  we  may  imagine  Colonel 
Hutchinson  and  his  family  dancing  and  playing  cards 
about  Boston  Bay ;  but  such  imaginings  are  not  the 
history  of  the  Puritan  New  England.  Puritanism 
there  was  "the  truth  and  manliness  of  England" 
specially  vitalized  and  intensified  by  the  Five  Points 
of  Calvinism  enforced  by  the  Synod  of  Dort.  There 
were  "  State  Puritans  "  and  "  Doctrinal  Puritans  "  in 
old  England,  but  only  the  latter  found  their  way  to 
New  England.  When  Calvinism  came  into  England, 
Arminianism  came  also  ;  and  between  these  two  grew 
up  a  deadly  hostility  which  did  much  to  form  the  New 
England  Puritans  for  their  work,  civil  as  well  as 


260  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

ecclesiastical.  King  James,  a  renegade  from  Calvin 
ism,  allied  himself  to  the  Arminians ;  and  so  did 
Laud  and  his  party  who  hounded  the  non-conforming 
clergy,  —  a  strange  conjunction  of  liberalism  in  creed 
with  absolutism  in  politics,  which  cost  Charles  I.  his 
head,  and,  with  other  causes,  George  III.  his  colonies. 
All  this  and  more  Dr.  Palfrey  knew,  but  it  was  not 
an  agreeable  phase  of  his  subject,  and  he  left  it  alone. 
Nor  is  it  altogether  grateful  to  learn,  not  from  Dr. 
Palfrey's  history,  for  he  is  silent  on  this  also,  that 
the  New  England  Puritans  in  their  acceptance  of  the 
Resolutions  of  the  Synod  of  Dort,  deliberately  re 
jected  the  richest  legacy  of  Greece  to  the  modern 
world,  —  the  validity  and  finality  of  human  reason 
when  at  variance  with  authority,  even  the  highest. 
Neither  is  it  grateful  to  learn  that  it  is  with  Hooker, 
in  defense  of  reason  and  law  as  its  most  valid  expres 
sion,  that  the  modern  world,  including  the  last  two 
generations  of  the  Puritans,  is  in  accord,  rather  than 
with  Calvin  and  the  first  two  generations,  who  rejected 
the  Common  Law  of  their  race  for  the  Mosaic  Code 
of  the  Hebrews. 

The  New  England  Puritans  were  narrow  and  in 
tolerant,  not  because  the  age  was  narrow  and  intoler 
ant  ;  they  were  so  from  choice.  They  discussed  the 
matter,  and  knew  the  difference  between  tolerance  and 
illiberality  quite  as  well  as  we  do.  Their  testimony 
on  this  point  is  clear  and  explicit.  They  acted  as 
sincere  believers  always  act  when  great  interests  are 
at  stake.  They  believed  that  conformity  led  to  eter 
nal  death.  Therefore  they  crushed  it  out  as  our 
fathers  crushed  out  the  Tories,  and  as  we  crushed  out 
the  Copperheads.  Conscious  of  their  mission,  they 
made  no  apology  for  their  principles ;  but  they  wished 


PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND  261 

to  be  understood.  It  was  their  singleness  of  purpose, 
their  absolute  sincerity  of  belief,  their  utter  convic 
tion  that  happiness  here  and  hereafter  depended  upon 
the  acceptance  of  the  Calvinistic  scheme,  which  gave 
the  New  England  Puritans  their  power  and  success 
where  others  failed.  Dr.  Palfrey's  misapprehension 
of  this  vital  quality  of  New  England  Puritanism  per 
vades  his  whole  work,  and  no  part  of  it  more  than  the 
fifth  volume.  He  treats  "The  Great  Awakening" 
with  entire  candor,  but  as  he  would  treat  a  modern 
revival  of  religion.  He  sees  in  it  no  connection  with 
primitive  Puritanism,  or  permanent  influence  upon 
other  events  of  that  day  or  of  later  days.  He  has 
noted  in  the  second  generation  a  declension  from  the 
high  political  spirit  of  the  emigrants,  apparent  in  the 
rise  of  parties  at  the  revocation  of  the  first  Massa 
chusetts  charter  and  during  Dudley's  administration, 
and  he  attributes  this  to  the  influx  of  commercial  ad 
venturers  and  the  increase  of  wealth  and  luxury ;  but 
he  fails  to  notice  that  this  declension  was  rather  in 
their  theological  belief,  as  is  evident  from  the  fact 
that  the  Mathers,  Danforth,  and  others,  the  champions 
of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  liberty,  and  who  as  such 
merit  and  receive  his  commendation,  were  "  faithful 
among  the  faithless  found  "  in  asserting  and  maintain 
ing,  with  pathetic  earnestness,  the  old  Calvinistic  doc 
trines. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  about  the  declension.  It 
was  manifest  among  the  godly  in  the  acceptance  of 
the  halfway  covenant  and  in  some  departures  from 
discipline.  Ratcliff,  the  Church  of  England  chaplain 
of  Andros,  had  preached  in  the  Old  South,  and  not 
without  hearers ;  King's  Chapel,  Christ  Church,  and 
Trinity  marked  the  growth  of  Episcopacy ;  Harvard 


262  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

College,  having  repudiated  the  Mathers,  relegated 
herself  to  the  mild  doctrines  of  the  "  Dudleiaii  Lec 
tures,"  whose  founder  scrupled  not  at  "  Episcopal 
ordination  ;  "  and  even  more  alarming  to  those  of  the 
ancient  faith  was  the  circulation  of  a  book  inculcating 
whispered  belief  in  the  salvation  of  all.  To  arrest 
"  the  great  and  visible  decay  of  piety,"  a  synod  was 
called  in  1725  ;  but  the  Episcopal  clergy  of  Boston, 
through  the  Bishop  of  London,  invoked  the  royal  in 
terdiction.  There  was  mourning  in  Zion,  nor  com 
fort,  until  Edwards,  at  Northampton,  seizing  live  coals 
from  the  altar  of  Calvinism,1  touched  the  hearts  of  his 
own  people.  Then  came  Tennent  and  Davenport  in 
New  England,  and  Whitefield  from  Georgia  to  Maine, 
preaching  predestination,  election,  free  grace,  and  the 
wrath  to  come  upon  the  ungodly.  The  effects  were 
instantaneous.  By  estimation  there  were  forty  thou 
sand  converts  in  New  England  alone.  Old  profes 
sors  were  quickened  to  new  life  ;  Calvinism  had  free 
course.  And  to  Dr.  Palfrey  this  was  the  end  of  it. 

But  it  did  not  end  thus.  One  of  its  later  effects 
was  manifest  in  the  expedition  against  Louisburg  in 
1745  —  more  like  a  crusade  than  a  military  movement 
—  when  the  undisciplined  yeomanry  of  eastern  New 
England,  inspired  by  the  preaching  of  Whitefield, 
who  inscribed  their  banner  with  "Nil  desperandum 
sub  duce  Christo,"  attacked  the  French  Catholics  be 
hind  the  bastions  of  Louisburg  with  the  zeal  of  the 
Christians  against  the  infidels  in  the  Holy  Land. 
Another  effect  of  "  The  Great  Awakening  "  was  this : 
it  was  the  "  relay  "  of  the  electric  current  of  Calvin 
ism  which,  beginning  with  Winthrop,  unloosed  the 
bands  of  the  English  hierarchy,  and  coming  down  to 

1  Doyle's  English  in  America,  i.  132. 


PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND  263 

the  days  of  Samuel  Adams  unloosed  the  bands  of 
the  British  empire.  There  was  still  another  effect. 
The  Puritanism  of  New  England  far  more  than  that 
of  old  England,  owing  in  part  to  local  causes,  was  not 
merely  a  creed,  but  a  habit  of  mind  which  became 
hereditary  as  character,  and  has  survived  to  the  pre 
sent  day.  This  was  so  caused  by  the  recurrence  in 
the  middle  of  the  last  century  of  influences  like  that 
of  the  Synod  of  Dort  in  the  previous  century.  And 
there  was  still  another  effect.  Calvinism  in  New 
England,  differing  from  Puritanism  in  old  England, 
was  much  more  than  a  creed.  The  creed  has  changed, 
but  character  remains ;  and  the  constancy,  zeal,  and 
singleness  of  purpose,  and  intolerance  already  spoken 
of  —  in  a  word,  the  Calvinistic  spirit —  of  the  remote 
ancestor  reappears  even  in  those  whose  measure  of 
liberality  is  the  intensity  of  their  dissent  from  oppo 
nents,  or  who  limit  the  universality  of  salvation  to 
such  as  accept  the  doctrine.  Character  thus  formed 
was  the  greatest  legacy  of  the  New  England  Puritans 
to  their  descendants,  for  by  that  they  have  prevailed. 
Of  this  transforming  and  sustaining  power  of  Calvin 
istic  Puritanism  Dr.  Palfrey  gives  us  no  hint.  As  he 
frankly  informs  us,  with  Geneva  he  had  no  sympathy. 
It  may  be  so  with  us,  but  the  facts  remain. 

More  than  half  of  Dr.  Palfrey's  fifth  volume  is 
given  to  the  causes  and  events  which  led  to  the  Amer 
ican  Kevolution.  It  affords  little  evidence  of  insight, 
and  is  disfigured  by  singular  misstatements  of  essen 
tial  facts.  No  doubt  the  causes  which  led  to  forcible 
resistance,  whether  originating  in  Great  Britain  or  in 
the  colonies,  were  earlier  and  more  effectively  opera 
tive  in  New  England  than  in  the  other  colonies.  But 
it  is  nowhere  noticed  by  Dr.  Palfrey  as  extraordinary 


264  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

that,  on  the  arrival  of  the  news  of  the  passage  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  months  before  it  was  to  take  effect,  and 
therefore  not  as  against  "  intolerable  oppression,"  as 
he  says,  the  people  from  Maine  to  Georgia  declared 
their  determination  to  resist  it  by  violence  to  persons 
and  property  which  there  was  no  effort  to  prevent  or 
arrest.  It  is  obvious,  therefore,  that  there  must  have 
been  other  causes  operative  anterior  to  that  event,  and 
not  confined  to  commercial  centres  quick  to  discern 
whatever  was  likely  to  interfere  with  their  interests, 
but  pervading  agricultural  communities  remote  from 
centres  of  business  or  intelligence.  The  only  abso 
lutely  sincere  and  universally  operative  cause  of  the 
Revolution  was  the  desire  and  determination  of  the 
majority  of  the  colonists  to  be  free  ;  a  desire  common 
to  all  branches  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  wherever 
found ;  a  desire  quickened  in  the  American  branch  by 
remoteness  from  the  home  government,  and  a  growing 
consciousness  of  ability  to  set  up  and  maintain  one 
for  themselves.  With  this  desire  and  determination 
they  left  their  English  home ;  and  if  these  motives 
were  sometimes  in  abeyance,  they  were  never  given  up 
until  they  became  accomplished  facts.  Against  this 
view  of  the  case  are  their  profuse  and  not  altogether 
sincere  professions  of  allegiance.  They  were,  indeed, 
sincere  on  one  condition :  that  they  should  have  their 
own  way,  which  was  generally  the  case  down  to  the 
close  of  the  war  in  1763.  When  the  Revolution  came 
it  was  inevitable,  and  it  was  conducted  as  rightly  as 
revolutions  ever  are.  The  exigencies  of  the  cause 
required  and  justified  the  "thorough"  measures  of 
the  Whigs  and  the  application  of  Samuel  Adams's 
theory  of  politics :  "  Put  your  enemy  in  the  wrong  and 
keep  him  there  !  "  To  conduct  a  revolution  on  such 


PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND  265 

grounds  is  doubtless  good  practical  politics  and  even 
good  statesmanship.  But  to  write  history  in  that 
spirit  gives  no  promise  of  its  continuance.  Another 
interesting  fact  not  adverted  to  by  Dr.  Palfrey,  not 
withstanding  his  frequent  reference  to  events  passing 
in  England,  was  the  contemporaneous  English  Revo 
lution,  going  forward  almost  with  equal  step,  and 
with  the  same  general  purpose  of  enlarging  popular 
liberty  against  prerogative,  which  reached  results 
more  surprising,  if  possible,  than  those  which  followed 
the  American  Revolution.  In  both  countries  the  re 
volution  was  brought  about  by  agencies  acting  effi 
ciently  in  the  British  Parliament  as  in  the  colonial 
assemblies. 

Still  more  extraordinary  is  it  that  Dr.  Palfrey  no 
where  thinks  it  necessary  to  state  that  the  American 
Revolution  —  as  was  the  case  with  the  contemporane 
ous  English  Revolution  —  was  the  result  of  party 
action,  not  of  unanimous  popular  action.  He  has, 
indeed,  something  to  say  about  government  officials, 
placemen,  and  commercial  adventurers  opposing  what 
he  would  have  us  think  was  the  grand  movement  of 
an  entire  people  towards  their  objective  point,  —  colo 
nial  independence.  This  view  of  the  Revolution  may 
have  arisen  from  Dr.  Palfrey's  theory  respecting  the 
New  England  settlers  and  their  descendants.  In  his 
judgment  the  work  was  mainly  theirs,  and  one  which 
no  other  contemporary  generations  of  men  could  have 
done.  At  times  they  may  have  been  a  little  too 
strenuous,  a  little  inclined  to  magnify  small  causes  of 
discontent  with  the  mother  country  or  her  representa 
tives  ;  but  even  in  these  respects  it  was  an  excess  of 
a  noble  spirit  of  liberty  without  taint  of  self-interest, 
or  an  unwillingness  to  share  common  burdens  with 


266  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

others,  or  to  submit  to  regulations  necessary  and  rea 
sonable  for  the  commerce  and  government  of  an 
empire  of  which  they  were  parts.  On  the  other  hand, 
they  were  loyal  and  dutiful  subjects,  glorying  in  the 
name  of  Britons,  and  "  without  the  most  distant 
thought  of  independence."  But  when,  after  the  close 
of  the  French  war,  the  British  government  unconsti 
tutionally  undertook  to  tax  them,  then,  and  for  the 
first  time,  as  one  man,  on  axiomatic  principles  of  Eng 
lish  liberty  enunciated  by  Hampden,  Sidney,  and 
Locke,  they  resisted  the  king  and  Parliament,  and 
took  the  field  for  a  seven  years'  war. 

This  is  the  old,  conventional  theory  of  the  origin 
of  the  American  Revolution.  But,  by  the  estimate  of 
John  Adams,  two  fifths  —  some  others  say  three  fifths 
—  of  the  colonists,  including  a  large  proportion  of  the 
cultured  classes,  were  Tories,  who,  by  an  organized 
system  of  terrorism  not  easy  to  be  understood  in  these 
days,  were  obliged  to  flee  the  country  or  to  fall  in 
with  measures  of  the  Whigs.  Free  speech  was  not 
allowed,  nor  would  silent  adherence  to  their  convic 
tions  answer.  They  must  speak  —  speak  loudly,  and 
only  in  one  way.  They  must  act  —  act  promptly  in 
accordance  with  the  most  vehemently  expressed  senti 
ment.  Now  it  agrees  neither  with  reason  nor  with 
the  facts  to  represent  this  party,  as  Dr.  Palfrey  does, 
as  made  up  of  British  placemen,  colonial  office-holders, 
mercantile  sojourners,  and  a  few  men 1  like  Hutchin- 
son,  Oliver,  Samuel  Quincy,  Jonathan  Sewall,  Daniel 
Leonard,  Timothy  Ruggles,  and  the  greater  part  of 
the  Episcopal  clergy,  who  malignantly  sought  the 

1  It  would  seem  that  he  never  read  Sabine's  American  Loyalists,  and 
counted  their  number  or  estimated  their  character  and  standing  in 
society. 


PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND  267 

destruction  of  their  native  land,  which  they  had  done 
much  to  improve,  and  in  which  were  their  dearest 
interests.  Yet  such  is  the  general  impression  one 
gets  from  his  history. 

The  degree  of  Dr.  Palfrey's  partisanship  would  be 
incredible  without  proof,  but  a  few  examples  must 
serve.  The  Seven  Years'  War  had  added  more  than 
£300,000,000  to  the  British  debt ;  and  "  was  it  not 
equitable,"  Dr.  Palfrey  represents  the  British  govern 
ment  as  asking,  "  that  the  North  American  colonists, 
as  subjects  of  Great  Britain,  should  pay  their  propor 
tion  of  it?"  especially  since  the  argument  might  be 
plausibly  maintained  that  part  of  it  had  been  in 
curred  in  their  defense.  Dr.  Palfrey  ought  to  have 
known  —  and  with  the  statutes  before  him  it  would 
seem  that  he  must  have  known  —  that  the  British 
government  never  asked,  nor,  so  far  as  appears,  ever 
contemplated  asking,  the  colonists  to  do  any  such 
thing.1  They  were  asked  to  pay  one  third  of  the  esti 
mated  expense  of  their  future  defense.  The  pre 
amble  of  the  first  revenue  act  of  1764  and  that  of 
the  Stamp  Act  set  forth  the  purpose  to  raise  money 
"towards  defraying  the  expenses  of  defending,  pro 
tecting,  and  securing  the  colonies  and  plantations." 
Such  was  the  purpose,  —  not  to  pay  the  British  debt 
or  any  part  of  it ;  and  neither  in  the  Parliamentary 
debates  nor  elsewhere  is  there  any  warrant  for  Dr. 
Palfrey's  amazing  statement.  Of  like  nature  is  his 
assertion  that  the  duties  collected  from  the  Sugar 
Act,  after  certain  deductions,  were  to  be  remitted  to 
the  royal  Exchequer  in  hard  money,  thereby  draining 
the  colonies  of  their  specie.  Not  a  penny  was  to  go 
abroad.  The  sums  collected  were  to  be  paid  into  the 

1  Massachusetts  Historical  Collections,  vi.  194  ;  ix.  270. 


268  PALFREY'S  NEW  ENGLAND 

receipt  of  his  Majesty's  Exchequer  by  certificates  to 
be  entered  apart  from  all  other  moneys,  and  applied 
from  time  to  time  by  Parliament  to  defraying  the 
expenses  above  mentioned. 

Of  willful  perversion  Dr.  Palfrey  was  utterly  in 
capable.  On  the  contrary,  no  historian  ever  wished 
to  be  more  accurate.  He  had  his  theory  of  New  Eng 
land  history,  and  according  to  that  the  prevailing 
party  at  every  stage  of  it  were  right  in  their  princi 
ples,  purposes,  and  mainly  in  their  measures  ;  and  the 
other  party  were  entirely  and  malignantly  wrong, 
with  nothing  to  excuse  or  palliate  their  conduct. 
The  history  of  New  England  neither  requires  nor  will 
it  bear  such  treatment.  It  will  bear  telling  in  its 
entirety  from  1620  to  1787.  It  has  its  seamy  side, 
as  has  the  history  of  every  period,  however  glorious ; 
and  this  it  is  neither  wise  nor  necessary  to  conceal  as 
Dr.  Palfrey  occasionally  does;  nor  to  place  it  in  a 
wrong  light,  as  he  frequently  does ;  nor  to  apologize 
for  it,  as  he  invariably  does,  —  sometimes  on  grounds 
of  necessity,  which  has  always  been  made  to  condone 
some  of  the  most  flagrant  acts  of  political  and  ecclesi 
astical  tyranny  recorded  in  history. 

Dr.  Palfrey's  insight  into  the  essential  character  of 
men  is  no  more  trustworthy  than  his  insight  as  to  the 
causes  and  relations  of  events.  Nor  is  he  impartial. 
He  conceals  the  well-known  blotch  on  the  character 
of  Samuel  Adams,  and  dwells  upon  charges,  now 
known  to  be  false,  against  the  character  of  Hutchin- 
son.  He  performed  a  great  service  in  writing  the 
history  of  the  New  England  colonies,  so  that  it  need 
not  be  rewritten ;  but  the  history  of  "  the  people  of 
New  England "  requires  an  historian  of  a  different 
order. 


McMASTEK'S  HISTORY 

OF  THE  PEOPLE  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES 

FROM  THE  "ANDOVER  REVIEW"  OF  JUNE,  1886 


McMASTER'S    HISTORY  OF    THE    PEO 
PLE   OF  THE  UNITED   STATES 


MR.  JOHN  BACH  McMASTER  has  undertaken  to 
write  the  history  of  the  people  of  the  United  States, 
from  the  Revolution  to  the  Civil  War,  in  five  vol 
umes,  two  of  which,  bringing  the  narrative  down  into 
Jefferson's  administration,  have  already  appeared. 
The  first,  published  in  1883,  was  favorably  received 
by  critics  as  well  as  by  the  public ;  and  the  second, 
which  has  recently  appeared,  shows  no  loss  of  vigor 
in  its  execution  or  of  interest  in  its  materials.  A 
new  history  of  the  United  States  should  be  its  own 
excuse  for  being.  Mr.  McMaster's  work  is  undoubt 
edly  a  positive  contribution  to  history,  and  by  its 
excellences  no  less  than  by  its  defects  will  provoke 
criticism.  This  should  be  so ;  for  one  of  the  pro 
mises  of  a  better  literature  is  our  discontent  with  what 
we  already  have. 

It  need  not  be  said  of  the  first  edition  of  a  work 
dealing  with  a  great  variety  of  facts,  that  errors  have 
crept  into  it,  or  that  some  things  essential  to  com 
pleteness  have  been  overlooked,  or  that  some  unwar 
ranted  conclusions  have  been  drawn  from  authorities 
cited  in  their  support.  Such  errors  and  defects  are 
inevitable. 

Mr.  McMaster  possesses  manifest  qualifications  for 
writing  history.  To  say  of  an  historian  that  he  is 
honest,  that  he  collects  his  materials  industriously 


272  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

and  allows  them  to  stand  for  what  they  are  worth, 
without  foisting  upon  them  a  partisan  or  sectarian 
theory,  ought  to  sound  as  strange  as  when  said  of  a 
judicial  magistrate.  But  it  does  not ;  and  when  such 
things  can  be  truly  said  of  a  writer  of  history,  it  is 
very  high  praise.  Mr.  McMaster's  industry  is  mar 
velous,  even  to  those  familiar  with  similar  researches. 
He  overlooks  some  things,  but  he  conceals  nothing. 
We  may  conjecture  the  direction  of  his  sympathies  in 
respect  to  the  great  political  parties  which  were  form 
ing  during  the  early  stages  of  his  history,  but  there 
is  no  lack  of  candor  in  dealing  with  them,  and  he 
dares  to  look  even  Washington  in  the  face.  This 
has  not  always  been  so.  Charles  Thomson,  the  patri 
otic  secretary  of  the  Old  Congress,  wrote  its  history, 
which  he  intended  to  publish  ;  but  his  courage  failed 
at  the  pinch,  and  he  burnt  it.  We  might  guess  his 
reasons,  even  if  he  had  not  given  them,  when  we  read 
the  "  Diary  of  John  Adams." 

Mr.  McMaster  entitles  his  work  "  A  History  of  the 
People  of  the  United  States,"  and  thereby  indicates 
an  intention  which  is  more  fully  avowed  in  his  intro 
ductory  chapter.  He  says  that  in  the  course  of  his 
narrative  "much,  indeed,  must  be  written  of  wars, 
conspiracies,  and  rebellions ;  of  presidents,  of  con 
gresses,  of  embassies,  of  treaties,  of  the^  ambition  of 
political  leaders  in  the  senate-house,  and  of  the  rise 
of  great  parties  in  the  nation.  Yet  the  history  of 
the  people  shall  be  the  chief  theme." 

He  makes  no  claim  to  originality  in  drawing  this 
distinction  between  the  history  of  the  people  and  of 
the  nation  to  which  they  belong.  In  1879  John 
Richard  Green,  whose  early  death  was  a  loss  to  let 
ters,  published  a  "  Short  History  of  the  English  Peo- 


McMASTEKS  HISTORY  273 

pie,"  in  which  he  proposed  "'to  pass  lightly  and 
briefly  over  the  details  of  foreign  wars  and  diploma 
cies,  the  personal  adventures  of  kings  and  nobles,  the 
pomp  of  courts,  or  the  intrigues  of  favorites,  and  to 
dwell  at  length  on  the  incidents  of  that  constitutional 
and  social  advance  in  which  we  read  the  history  of 
the  nation  itself."  To  Mr.  Green's  authority  for  this 
theory  of  what  makes  the  history  of  the  English  peo 
ple  Mr.  McMaster  has  now  added  his  own  for  a 
similar  theory  of  the  history  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States.  But  Mr.  Green's  ideas  upon  English 
history  appear  to  be  questioned  by  high  authority, 
presently  to  be  adverted  to  ;  and  it  is  proposed  to 
offer  in  this  paper  some  special  considerations  which 
make  them  less  applicable  to  the  history  of  the 
United  States. 

The  success  of  Mr.  Green's  history  was  immediate 
and  brilliant,  —  only  equaled  by  that  of  Macaulay's 
historical  essays  and  of  his  "History  of  England." 
But  this  success  was  due,  in  part  at  least,  to  Mr. 
Green's  rare  historical  insight,  to  his  condensation 
and  artistic  grouping  of  materials,  and  to  his  singu 
larly  pure  and  attractive  style.  His  theory  also  gained 
adherents  as  a  protest  against  that  class  of  historical 
compositions  in  which  wars,  the  doings  of  courts  and 
parliaments,  and  foreign  relations  were  treated  as  the 
staple  of  history,  while  the  progress  of  literature,  and 
of  science,  of  art,  and  of  manners  was  relegated  in 
brief  summaries  —  as  notably  by  Hume  —  to  the  end 
of  a  chapter.  Hildreth,  whose  history  is  one  of  the 
best,  rigorously  excluded  from  it  everything  like  a 
theory  of  politics,  and,  to  make  amends,  published  an 
excellent  one  as  a  separate  treatise,  and  cynically  com 
mended  it  to  the  attention  of  "  such  critics  as  have 


274  McMASTERS  HISTORY 

complained  that  his  history  of  the  United  States  had 
no  '  philosophy  '  in  it." 

But  Mr.  Green's  scheme  of  history  seems  to  be 
challenged  by  Professor  Seeley  in  his  "  Expansion  of 
England,"  who  regards  the  progress  of  a  people  in 
literature,  art,  and  manners  as  properly  belonging  to 
the  history  of  the  "  general  progress  that  the  human 
race  everywhere  alike,  and  therefore  also  in  England, 
may  chance  to  be  making ;  "  and  that  such  matters 
would  be  more  fittingly  treated,  as  they  have  been,  in 
the  history  of  literature  in  England. 

On  the  other  hand,  he  considers  "  that  history  has 
to  do  with  the  state ;  that  it  investigates  the  growth 
and  changes  of  a  certain  corporate  society,  which  acts 
through  certain  functionaries  and  certain  assemblies. 
By  the  nature  of  the  state  every  person  who  lives  in 
a  certain  territory  is  usually  a  member  of  it,  but  his 
tory  is  not  concerned  with  individuals,  except  in  their 
capacity  of  members  of  a  state.  That  a  man  in  Eng 
land  makes  a  scientific  discovery  or  paints  a  picture 
is  not  in  itself  an  event  in  the  history  of  England. 
Individuals  are  important  in  history  in  proportion  not 
to  their  intrinsic  merit,  but  to  their  relation  to  the 
state.  Socrates  was  a  much  greater  man  than  Cleon, 
but  Cleon  has  a  much  greater  space  in  Thucydides. 
Newton  was  a  greater  man  than  Harley,  yet  it  is  Har- 
ley,  not  Newton,  who  fixes  the  attention  of  the  histo 
rian  of  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne." 

These  extracts  indicate  that  Mr.  Green  and  Pro 
fessor  Seeley  were  not  in  accord  respecting  the  scope 
and  proper  limitations  of  the  history  of  England  ; 
and  yet  neither  could  push  his  views  to  extremes. 
Although  Mr.  Green  passes  lightly  and  briefly  over 
foreign  wars  and  the  intrigues  of  courts,  they  form  no 


McM ASTER'S  HISTORY  275 

inconsiderable  part  of  his  history  when  comprised  in 
a  single  volume,  and  a  still  greater  part  when,  in  a 
new  edition,  that  volume  is  expanded  into  four.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  Professor  Seeley  would  often  find 
himself  in  the  presence  of  unorganized  forces,  not 
belonging  to  the  state  and  having  no  direct  relation 
to  it,  yet  visibly  affecting  it,  and  therefore  to  be  taken 
into  historical  account. 

But  even  if  Mr.  Green's  theory  of  the  history  of 
England  is  correct,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is  appli 
cable  to  that  of  the  United  States;  for  there  is  a 
wide  difference  between  the  two  nations,  and  an 
appreciation  of  this  difference  is  essential  to  the  ver 
ity  of  our  history.  Louis  XIV.,  without  exaggeration, 
might  exclaim,  "  I  am  the  State ;  "  and  there  was  a 
time  in  England  when  the  phrase  "  King,  Lords,  and 
Commons  "  expressed  the  existence  of  a  deep  gulf 
between  these  factors  in  the  Constitution  and  the  elec 
tors  of  the  Commons.  They  constituted  only  one 
sixth  of  the  people,  and  did  not  include  the  citizens 
of  such  great  towns  as  Liverpool,  Manchester,  and 
Birmingham.  And  there  was  a  still  deeper  gulf  be 
tween  these  electors  and  the  great  body  of  unrepre 
sented  people.  Nor  was  there  on  one  side  of  this 
chasm  knowledge,  wisdom,  and  virtue,  and  on  the 
other  weakness,  ignorance,  and  vice.  For  neither 
literature  nor  religion,  save  so  far  as  it  was  political, 
had  recognized  relations  to  the  state,  or  direct  influ 
ence  in  the  management  of  its  affairs. 

But  Mr.  McMaster  finds  no  such  state  of  affairs 
here.  From  the  day  when  Englishmen  first  appeared 
on  this  continent  in  organized  societies,  the  people 
and  the  state  have  been  interchangeable  terms ;  and 
everything  included  in  one  is  also  included  in  the 


276  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

other.  Nor  will  the  history  of  either  permit  the 
exclusion  of  wars,  conspiracies,  or  rebellions,  or  of 
according  to  them  less  than  their  just  prominence 
among  those  causes  which  have  made  the  United 
States  what  they  are  to-day.  What  things  constitute 
the  proper  subject  of  history,  and  their  relative  im 
portance  in  its  narrative,  is  determinable  only  by  the 
completeness  and  verity  of  history. 

The  history  of  the  United  States  is  without  pa 
geantry  or  splendor,  but  it  is  unique ;  and  upon  a  due 
appreciation  of  its  character,  and  a  conformity  to  the 
requirements  of  a  truthful  setting  forth  of  it,  will 
chiefly  depend  its  usefulness  not  only  to  us,  but  to 
foreign  nations,  which  seem  to  be  sensible  to  the  value 
of  the  facts  which  lie  behind  it,  if  not  to  the  felicity 
of  their  literary  expression. 

This  history  may  be  briefly  outlined.  The  English 
colonies  in  North  America,  with  some  political  and 
religious  diversities,  began  their  organic  life  on  this 
soil  under  substantially  the  same  conditions,  which 
continued  down  to  the  Revolution.  Whether  they 
were  crown-provinces,  or  had  obtained  charters  from 
the  king,  or  from  the  proprietaries,  or  had  organized 
under  their  patents,  they  had  moulded  these  various 
powers  into  constitutions  of  government  which,  in 
1775,  gave  a  higher  sanction  to  armed  resistance  to 
royal  authority  than  any  wrongs  they  had  suffered,  or 
any  wrongs  they  feared.  A  strange,  unique  history ! 
Thirteen  incorporated  land  companies  —  for  such  was 
their  legal  character  —  developed,  with  only  a  nomi 
nal  adherence  to  their  acts  of  incorporation,  into  thir 
teen  independent,  constitutional  governments.  This 
is  what  they  had  accomplished  at  the  close  of  the 
Revolution :  not  union,  then,  or  nationality.  These, 


McMASTER'S  HISTORY  277 

in  all  but  the  name,  belong  to  our  own  day ;  and,  like 
the  first,  are  the  results  of  civil  war. 

When  we  look  at  these  colonies  as  organized  soci 
eties  we  find,  as  we  find  nowhere  else,  that  the  people 
and  the  state  were  identical.  The  state  was  the  peo 
ple  "  as  a  mode  of  action."  In  other  lands  a  king,  or 
a  king's  mistress,  or  a  cabal,  made  wars,  invaded  per 
sonal  and  public  rights,  and  ruined  finances  ;  but  if 
an  American  colony  was  turbulent  or  disobedient,  it 
was  the  turbulence  and  disobedience  of  the  people; 
if  wars  were  waged,  or  embassies  dispatched,  it  was 
by  their  order ;  if  schools,  colleges,  or  churches  were 
set  up  and  maintained,  it  was  because  the  people 
willed  it ;  and  if,  at  one  time,  the  covenant  was  held 
in  its  rigor,  and  at  a  later  time,  in  a  modified  form, 
it  was  the  voice  of  the  people  speaking  through  the 
General  Court,  or  a  synod,  that  so  ordained. 

Contrast  this  state  of  affairs  with  what  prevailed 
even  in  England,  in  which  alone,  of  the  European 
nations,  popular  ideas  had  made  any  considerable  pro 
gress.  On  the  side  of  the  political  organization  called 
the  state  were  arrayed  many  prerogatives  no  longer 
based  on  reason  ;  the  power  of  making  war  and  peace 
irrespective  of  popular  sentiment,  and  all  those  agen 
cies  which  were  clothed  with  the  insignia  of  national 
ity.  Apart  from  and  over  against  the  state,  but 
having  certain  relations  to  it,  were  the  people,  among 
whom  might  be  found  art,  science,  literature,  and  all 
those  social  and  moral  forces  which  do  not  depend 
upon  the  state  for  their  efficiency.  Where  such  dis 
tinctions  exist  between  the  people  and  their  govern 
ment,  a  history  of  the  English  people  may  be  some 
thing  apart  from  the  history  of  England ;  but  the 
essential  correlation  of  the  people  and  the  government 


278  McMASTEWS  HISTORY 

for  the  United  States  —  in  fact,  their  identity —  makes 
the  history  of  the  people,  so  far  as  it  implies  a  dis 
tinction,  a  political  and  historical  solecism. 

Apparently  Mr.  McMaster  intended  such  a  distinc 
tion,  to  judge  by  the  title  of  his  history,  and  from  the 
fact  that  in  the  history  itself,  he  has  passed  over  in 
silence,  or  relegated  to  a  subordinate  place,  those  mat 
ters  which  do  not  have  a  direct  relation  to  what  is 
called  the  progress  of  society,  using  the  term  compre 
hensively. 

Mr.  McMaster's  history  opens  in  the  midst  of  a  sad, 
shameful  period  of  our  national  life,  if  we  accept  the 
pictures  he  paints  of  it ;  and  that  they  are  drawn  with 
a  general  fidelity  to  truth  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But 
it  is  equally  true  that  the  people  suffer  undeservedly 
in  reputation  by  this  division  of  their  history  in  the 
middle  of  an  important  epoch,  the  whole  of  which  is 
essential  to  a  right  understanding  of  its  parts.  The 
treaty  of  peace  in  1783,  with  which  Mr.  McMaster's 
history  opens,  is  an  apparent,  instead  of  a  real,  land 
mark  in  our  history.  Essentially,  it  was  a  political 
recognition  of  a  fact  accomplished  by  the  capitulation 
of  Cornwallis  nearly  two  years  before.  By  beginning 
his  history  at  the  time  which  he  has  selected,  the  peo 
ple  are  not  only  denied  the  period  of  their  glory,  but 
also  of  the  presentation  of  those  circumstances  which 
extenuate  their  shame.  On  the  19th  of  April,  1775, 
the  war  for  independence  opened  with  spirit,  and  it 
was  carried  on  with  courage  and  self-devotion.  For 
undisciplined  soldiers,  the  troops  generally  fought 
fairly  well ;  and  the  officers  were  patriotic,  if  not  par 
ticularly  well  educated  for  the  profession  of  arms. 
Congress  and  the  colonial  assemblies  exerted  them 
selves  with  vigor,  and  the  people  did  not  lag  behind. 


Me  MASTER'S  HISTORY  279 

High-water  mark  of  patriotism  was  reached  in  those 
efforts,  public  and  private,  which  were  crowned  by  the 
surrender  of  Burgoyiie's  army  in  October,  1777.  With 
this  event  the  people  hoped  the  war  would  end  ;  but  it 
turned  out  otherwise,  and  the  disasters  at  Brandywine, 
in  September,  and  at  Germantown,  in  October  of  the 
same  year,  fell  with  disheartening  effect  upon  the 
country.  This  soon  began  to  appear.  The  strength 
of  the  army  gradually  fell  off  from  46,901  in  1776  to 
13,832  in  1781,  the  last  year  of  the  war ;  and  the 
actual  payments  on  military  account,  during  the  same 
period,  dwindled  from  $21,000,000  to  $2,000,000.! 
The  people  were  becoming  tired  of  the  war,  with  its 
merciless  drain  upon  their  resources;  and  when  the 
French  army,  with  its  ample  military  chest,  took  the 
field,  there  was  danger  lest  the  further  prosecution  of 
the  contest  would  depend  upon  French  men  and 
French  money.  Jobbery  and  self-seeking  were  as 
rife  as  in  the  last  years  of  the  late  Civil  War.  The 
unpaid  soldiers  were  mutinous,  and  traitors  near 
Washington's  person  corruptly  revealed  his  plans  to 
Clinton  almost  as  soon  as  they  were  formed.  Con 
gress  was  torn  with  dissensions,  and  its  proceedings 
were  marked  by  incapacity  and  indecision.  And  the 
colonial  assemblies  were  no  better.  In  the  dire  ex 
tremity  of  the  army,  —  its  ranks  depleted,  its  mili 
tary  chest  empty,  the  soldiers  destitute  of  food  and 
clothing,  requisitions  were  treated  with  indifference 
and  almost  contempt.  This  was  the  beginning  of  a 
state  of  affairs  which  continued  some  years  after  the 
time  at  which  Mr.  McMaster  opens  his  history  of  the 

1  These  and  similar  figures  in  this  paper  express  facts  only  in  a 
general  way,  and  for  any  more  exact  purpose  are  to  be  received  with 
caution,  although  found  in  respectable  authorities. 


280  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

people.  Few  more  humiliating  stories  than  those  he 
relates  can  be  found  in  the  annals  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
race  ;  the  treatment  of  the  old  soldiers  ;  the  barbarities 
practiced  on  the  refugee  loyalists  ;  the  continual  dis 
regard  of  congressional  requisitions  for  the  support  of 
the  government ;  the  Newburgh  Address  ;  the  violent 
resistance  to  the  administration  of  justice  ;  the  hostile 
legislation  between  the  colonies ;  the  proposed  issue  of 
irredeemable  paper-money  for  the  purpose,  openly 
avowed,  of  defrauding  creditors.  These,  and  other 
similar  acts,  threatened  political  and  social  anarchy. 
Nevertheless,  the  people  did  not  fall  into  anarchy. 
On  the  contrary,  government  performed  its  functions, 
and  steadily  moved  forward  in  the  development  of 
more  complete  and  efficient  forms.  And  if  the  history 
of  the  people  in  its  entirety  from  1774  to  1789  be 
taken  into  account,  as  in  fairness  it  ought  to  be, 
though  sorely  tried,  they  were  patient,  courageous,  pro 
digal  of  themselves  and  of  their  money,  and  worthy  of 
the  highest  encomiums.  Their  history  is  the  history  of 
a  period.  Men  who  signed  the  Address  to  the  King  in 
1774  also  signed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States 
in  1787  ;  and  during  this  time  —  less  than  half  that 
assigned  to  a  generation  —  what  labors  and  sufferings 
did  they  not  endure,  what  depths  of  humiliation  did 
they  not  sound,  what  heights  of  glory  did  they  not 
tread,  —  these  men,  less  than  three  millions,  who,  in 
resistance  to  parliamentary  taxation,  put,  it  has  been 
asserted,  nearly  three  hundred  thousand  troops  into 
the  field,  raised  and  paid  out  from  the  general  trea 
sury  above  a  hundred  millions  of  dollars,  proclaimed 
and  secured  independence,  changed  their  colonial  gov 
ernments  without  passing  through  a  period  of  anarchy, 
quelled  intestine  commotions,  entered  into  union,  and 


McMASTER'S  HISTORY  281 

established  a  national  government  which  secured  their 
prosperity  and  happiness.  What  people,  in  a  time 
so  brief,  ever  achieved  so  much  ?  Nevertheless,  they 
were  very  human.  Sometimes  they  faltered  ;  some 
times  they  lost  heart,  and  even  their  heads  ;  but  they 
recovered  both  in  season  to  prevent  irretrievable  dis 
aster,  and  finally  accomplished  their  great  purpose. 
Now  anything  less  than  this  history  in  its  entirety, 
however  faithful  it  may  be  in  details,  is  injurious  to 
their  just  fame,  and  loses  its  value  for  example  or 
warning.  Their  mistakes  and  weaknesses  and  vacil 
lation  undoubtedly  form  a  part  of  their  history  ;  and 
so  do  those  great  achievements  and  characteristics  by 
which  they  finally  triumphed.  The  remnant  that 
were  wise,  constant,  and  virtuous  were  the  people,  — 
the  Washingtons,  Greenes,  and  Sumters,  not  the 
Arnolds,  Conways,  and  Parsonses.  In  determining 
the  character  of  the  people  of  the  Revolution,  as  a 
whole,  it  is  not  a  question  of  majority.  The  men  are 
to  be  weighed,  not  counted.  On  the  side  where  the 
ultimate  force  majeure  was  found,  there  the  people 
were  to  be  found,  —  whether  in  the  majority  or  in  the 
minority  no  matter;  and  if  the  outcome  of  their  en 
deavor  was  success,  then  were  the  people  intelligent 
and  wise  ;  and  if  it  was  beneficent,  then  were  they 
virtuous.  The  period  from  1774  to  1789  was  a  period 
of  rebellion,  revolution,  and  reconstruction.  But  it 
will  never  be  understood  so  long  as  it  is  regarded  as 
an  exceptional  epoch  in  our  history  ;  for  from  the 
first  day  that  organized  English  colonies  were  planted 
on  American  soil  they  began  to  rebel,  to  make  revolu 
tions,  and  to  form  constitutions.  This  they  continued 
to  do  in  clear  political  sequence,  with  scarcely  a  break, 
down  to  the  day  when  they  found  themselves  under  a 


282  McMASTEPCS  HISTORY 

stable  government  of  their  own.  This  is  true  of  all 
the  colonies,  and  the  essential  political  history  of  each 
is  the  history  of  every  other.  The  history  of  their 
governments  and  of  their  peoples  is  one  and  insepara 
ble  ;  and  their  several  peoples  were  one  people,  —  an 
organism  with  functions  of  scarcely  distinguishable 
honor  or  usefulness.  There  were  no  rich,  no  poor ;  no 
high,  no  low  ;  no  wise,  no  ignorant ;  no  virtuous,  no 
vicious,  in  the  European  sense  of  these  terms. 

It  is  doubtful,  therefore,  whether  this  history  can 
be  adequately  told  in  a  series  of  monographs,  or  if 
the  history  of  the  people  be  severed  from  that  of  the 
political  constitutions  which  expressed  the  popular 
sentiment.  But  if  this  is  attempted,  the  series  cer 
tainly  should  include  one  on  the  people  themselves ; 
for  few  subjects  are  more  interesting  or  instructive 
than  the  changes  in  the  character  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States  between  the  landing  at  Jamestown  and 
the  period  which  closes  Mr.  McMaster's  second  vol 
ume.  For  such  a  history  we  could  well  spare,  or  pass 
lightly  over,  some  other  matters.  History  ought  to  be 
made  interesting,  if  verity  in  the  general  effect  can  be 
preserved.  But  many  entertaining  subjects  are  of  sec 
ondary  importance.  We  need  not  be  told  —  certainly 
not  with  much  detail  —  that  in  a  new  country,  remote 
from  great  centres  of  wealth  and  civilization,  roads 
were  bad,  bridges  few  or  none,  hotels  execrable,  books 
rare,  and  newspapers  lacking  their  modern  features. 
Such  a  condition  of  things  marks  only  a  stage  of  mate 
rial  progress,  —  not  of  civilization.  Refined  and  cul 
tivated  communities  have  often  found  themselves  sur 
rounded  by  similar  circumstances  in  the  past,  and  so 
will  others  in  the  future.  The  essential  character  of 
the  people  is  vastly  more  important. 


McMASTER'S  HISTORY  283 

At  the  time  Mr.  McMaster's  history  opens,  Eng 
lishmen  and  their  descendants,  with  slight  admixture 
of  other  blood,  had  lived  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
on  this  soil,  under  climate  and  influences  widely  differ 
ing  from  those  to  which  their  race  for  a  thousand 
years  had  been  accustomed.  What  changes  had  these 
new  conditions  produced  in  the  physical,  intellectual, 
or  moral  character  of  these  Anglo-Americans  ?  On 
its  native  soil  the  race  had  wrought  great  things  and 
acquired  a  great  character.  Less  by  military  genius 
than  by  courage  and  indomitable  pluck,  it  had  waged 
successful  wars.  Rapacious  in  conquest  and  greedy  of 
the  commercial  results  of  colonization,  yet  it  was  the 
most  equitable  of  nations  in  dealing  with  its  depend 
encies,  save  Ireland,  and  most  benign  in  forming 
governments  for  them.  Nor  was  this  greatness  of 
the  past  alone ;  for,  recently,  under  the  inspiration 
of  Pitt's  genius,  its  spirit,  bursting  insular  bounds, 
had  shone  with  unsurpassed  splendor.  There  was  no 
continent  and  no  clime  that  did  not  witness  it.  In 
Europe,  on  the  field  of  Rosbach,  it  had  upheld  the 
hands  of  Frederick  the  Great,  as  he  repelled  the  last 
assault  on  continental  Protestantism.  At  Plassy  it 
had  opened  a  new  empire  in  India.  On  the  sea  it  had 
humbled  the  power  of  Spain  ;  and  on  the  Plains  of 
Abraham  it  had  destroyed  the  empire  of  France  in 
America. 

No  people  in  modern  times  had  reached  such  heights 
of  national  glory.  Nor  were  their  moral  victories  less 
splendid.  The  nameless  horrors  of  prisons  were  abol 
ished  ;  the  slave-trade  was  destroyed ;  the  penal  code 
mitigated  ;  a  reform  bill  passed,  and  moral  instruction 
carried  to  the  cottages  of  the  lowly,  —  achievements 
which  conferred  lustre  on  such  names  as  Howard, 


284  McMASTERS  HISTORY 

Clarkson,  Wilberforce,  Burke,  Komilly,  and  Hannah 
More. 

With  such  affiliations,  with  such  inheritances,  with 
such  stimulating  examples  in  the  elder  branch  of  the 
race,  how  did  the  younger  branch  bear  itself  in  its 
western  home  ?  From  their  first  coming  to  these 
shores  to  the  fall  of  the  French  empire  in  America 
their  work,  though  difficult,  had  been  simple  :  to  sub 
due  a  wilderness  and  its  savage  inhabitants  ;  to  develop 
self-government  under  the  conditions  imposed  by  their 
charters ;  and  to  promote  religion,  education,  and 
social  progress.  But  after  the  fall  of  the  French 
power  a  new,  complicated,  and  difficult  problem  con 
fronted  them  :  to  subvert  the  disastrous  commercial 
policy  of  the  empire,  peaceably  if  possible,  but  to  sub 
vert  it  at  all  hazards ;  to  disrupt  an  empire  when  the 
necessity  became  inevitable ;  to  declare  and  maintain 
independence  ;  to  change  colonial  governments  into 
independent  states,  without  intervening  anarchy  ;  to 
form  and  establish  union  under  a  frame  of  government 
which  should  recognize  the  autonomy  of  states,  while 
it  embraced  them  all  under  a  federal  jurisdiction. 

No  people  had  ever  undertaken  a  more  difficult 
work,  or  accomplished  it  more  successfully.  England, 
in  the  days  of  Cromwell,  attempted  a  permanent 
change  of  her  government,  and  failed  conspicuously. 
Later,  France  also  failed  in  a  similar  endeavor  prose 
cuted  by  methods  at  which  mankind  stood  aghast. 

But  the  American  people  have  succeeded  where 
those  of  England  and  of  France  miscarried.  Chance 
and  circumstances  doubtless  had  something  to  do  with 
this  difference  in  results,  but  it  was  mainly  owing  to 
difference  in  character.  The  Anglo-American  had 
acquired  an  element  of  character  which  did  not  belong 


McMASTER'S  HISTORY  285 

to  his  British  progenitor.  Whatever  he  may  have  lost, 
he  had  gained  the  power  of  organization ;  and  without 
this  power  he  must  have  failed.  This  requires  expla 
nation.  To  the  typical  Englishman,  the  unit  of  force 
was  the  individual  man ;  to  the  typical  American,  it 
was  an  organization.  The  force  which  reformed  Eng 
lish  prisons  was  John  Howard  ;  the  force  which  re 
formed  American  prisons  was  the  Prison  Discipline 
Society.  And  something  like  this  difference  in  modes 
of  action  has  characterized  the  two  branches  of  the 
race  in  those  great  movements  which  constitute  the 
glory  and  the  hope  of  the  age. 

This  change  in  methods  of  action  began  in  neces 
sity.  The  first  comers  recognized  it  at  once,  and,  with 
that  practical  sagacity  which  has  always  characterized 
them,  they  proceeded  to  organize  themselves  into  a 
state-militant  as  a  protection  against  an  insidious  foe ; 
into  a  church-militant  to  deal  summarily  with  intrud 
ing  heretics ;  into  town  governments  for  the  conduct 
of  communal  affairs  ;  into  school  districts  to  carry 
education  to  every  man's  door ;  into  watch-and-ward 
divisions  for  protection  against  fires  and  midnight 
marauders.  And  these  people  have  lived  and  breathed 
and  had  their  being  in  organizations  ever  since,  and 
with  manifest  advantages,  especially  at  the  outset ;  for 
not  only  was  every  man  utilized,  leaving  none  super 
fluous  or  idle,  but  utilized  for  every  conceivable  exi 
gency  of  the  state,  of  which  he  became  a  part  in  a 
manner  before  unknown.  And  the  value  of  this  per 
vasive  system  of  organization  was  even  more  manifest, 
when,  in  the  fullness  of  time,  barely  two  millions  and 
a  half  of  people  were  arrayed  in  resistance  to  the  most 
powerful  empire  of  the  world.  Never  did  any  race 
exhibit  such  power  of  organization,  or  put  it  to  such 


286  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

efficient  use,  as  did  the  colonists  during  the  American 
Revolution.  Town  governments,  committees  of  safety, 
committees  of  correspondence,  inter-colonial  associa 
tions,  extemporized  provincial  congresses,  and  even 
organized  mobs,  kept  well  in  hand  by  Samuel  Adams 
and  Isaac  Sears  to  strike  in  exigencies  where  legal 
methods  were  inefficient,  not  only  successfully  resisted 
the  power  of  Great  Britain,  but  subverted  the  royal 
provincial  governments,  without  violence,  by  provin 
cial  congresses  which  took  their  place  ad  interim. 

We  can  seldom  trace  a  national  habit  to  its  origin, 
but  in  this  instance  we  may.  It  was  due  to  the  co 
lonial  charters  ;  for  the  acceptance  of  a  charter  was  in 
itself  an  act  of  organization,  and  the  corporate  exist 
ence  in  conformity  to  its  provisions  compelled  the  im 
mediate  organization  of  all  those  institutions,  or  their 
equivalents,  such  as  legislatures,  courts,  towns,  military 
companies,  and  the  like,  which  on  English  soil,  in  the 
course  of  ages,  had  grown  up  without  organization. 
A  new  necessity  formed  a  new  habit.  And  the  habit 
once  formed,  the  people  organized  themselves  in  all 
possible  relations  to  the  colonial  state,  and  finally  to 
all  religious,  social,  and  moral  enterprises.  Happily 
for  them,  also,  the  acceptance  of  charters  changed 
their  natural  relations  to  the  parent  country  into  or 
ganic  political  relations  to  the  crown  which  engaged 
the  power  of  the  state  for  their  protection  from  do 
mestic  anarchy  and  foreign  foes.  The  lack  of  this 
advantage,  which  can  hardly  be  overestimated,  is 
manifest  in  the  unhappy  condition  of  those  colonies 
—  of  which  Rhode  Island  is  an  example  —  which  were 
without  charters,  or  acquired  them  too  late.  This  was 
not  fully  understood  by  either  party  at  the  time  ;  but 
we  now  see  that  when  Charles  I.  signed  a  colonial 


McMASTER'S  HISTORY  287 

charter,  he  signed  an  instrument  which,  in  the  hands 
of  the  colonists,  became  an  incipient  declaration  of 
independence  to  disturb  all  his  successors  ;  and  the 
fact  that  the  English  colonies  were  lands  held  of 
the  crown,  or  were  corporations  within  the  realm,  for 
extra-territorial  purposes,  and  as  such  creating  certain 
reciprocal  rights  and  duties,  is  the  master-key  which 
unlocks  their  political  history  from  Jamestown  to  Lex 
ington. 

This  acquired  faculty  of  organization  still  abides, 
and  is  used  for  the  accomplishment  of  every  conceiv 
able  purpose,  and  perhaps  threatens  to  impair  the 
force  of  individual  action  in  great  enterprises.  But 
it  ought  not  to  be  overlooked  in  the  history  of  the 
people  of  the  United  States ;  for  the  people  owe  to  it 
their  independence.  It  is  their  greatest  contribution 
to  the  science  of  practical  politics,  and  its  use  is  be 
coming  common  and  efficient  in  other  lands.1 

But  it  is  in  the  state  that  our  history  mainly  centres, 
and  there  it  must  be  sought ;  for  by  the  government 

1  De  Tocqueville  opens  the  Xllth  chapter  of  his  first  volume  of 
Democracy  in  America  with  these  words  :  "  In  no  country  in  the  world 
has  the  principle  of  association  been  more  successfully  used,  or  applied 
to  a  greater  multitude  of  objects,  than  in  America ;  "  but  he  states 
the  fact  as  he  found  it  when  he  wrote,  without  tracing1  its  historical 
origin.  In  chapter  V.  of  his  second  volume,  he  recurs  to  the  subject 
and  asks,  "  Is  this  the  result  of  accident  ?  or  is  there  in  reality  any 
necessary  connection  between  the  principles  of  association  and  that  of 
equality  ?  "  Apparently  he  thought  there  was.  But  association  in 
America  is  an  historical  fact  which  antedates  by  sixty  years  the  opera 
tion  of  politico-philosophical  causes.  The  first  act  of  social  existence 
in  the  dominating  colony  of  New  England  was  an  act  of  association 
which  made  necessary  all  successive  steps  in  that  direction.  Equality 
was  scarcely  a  genetic  force  in  a  close  corporation  of  landholders  into 
which  the  prime  condition  of  entrance  was  membership  in  the  estab 
lished  colonial  church.  Of  the  general  correctness  of  De  Tocqueville's 
view,  however,  there  can  be  little  doubt. 


288  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

have  been  accomplished  those  ends  which  most  power 
fully  affected  not  only  the  material  prosperity  of  the 
people,  but  also  their  national  character.  It  was  by  a 
foreign  treaty  that  the  people  gained  a  recognized 
position  among  the  nations.  By  the  same  treaty  their 
rights  in  the  fisheries  were  restored,  and  thus  was 
formed  a  nursery  of  hardy  seamen  who,  when  free 
play  was  given  to  their  spirit,  challenged  England's 
assumed  sovereignty  of  the  seas.  And  it  was  the  same 
treaty  which  opened  the  Mississippi  to  the  turbulent 
commerce  which  poured  down  from  its  tributaries. 
The  Ordinance  of  1787  —  which  Mr.  McMaster  has 
passed  over  without  endeavoring  to  unravel  its  intri 
cate  history,  and  with  only  slight  recognition  of  its 
character  —  excluded  slavery  from  the  Northwest,  and 
made  it  the  home  of  freemen  who  now  have  grown  to 
prosperous  millions.  It  was  by  treaty  that  Louisi 
ana  was  purchased  in  1803,  including  territory  which 
more  than  doubled  the  area  of  the  Union,  and  saved 
to  Anglo-American  laws,  customs,  and  manners  the 
vast  regions  beyond  the  Great  River.  It  was  through 
the  Assumption  Act  and  the  Funding  System  that 
Hamilton  "touched  the  dead  corpse  of  the  Public 
Credit,  and  it  sprung  upon  its  feet,"  -  —  acts  whose 
moral  significance  is  found  in  the  fact  that  the  public 
credit  has  ever  since  been  without  stain,  that  specie 
payment  was  resumed,  and  that  justice  was  done  to 
the  veterans  of  the  Civil  War. 

Such  are  some  of  the  themes  —  "  of  congresses,  of 
embassies,  of  treaties  "  —  which  enter  into  the  real 
history  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  consti 
tute  its  chief  value  for  the  citizen  as  well  as  for  the 
student.  They  ought  not  to  be  crowded  into  a  corner. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  noticeable  that  from  the 


McMASTEPCS  HISTORY  289 

peace  of  1783  to  the  close  of  Washington's  adminis 
tration  such  matters  as  are  embraced  in  the  phrase 
"  the  progress  of  society  "  were  almost  of  necessity  in 
abeyance.  For  during  this  period  the  States  were  per 
fecting  the  machinery  of  their  several  governments, 
and  the  general  government  was  determining  its  own 
powers,  and  adjusting  its  relations  to  the  States.  The 
people  were  chiefly  occupied  "  with  wars,  conspiracies, 
rebellions  ;  with  presidents,  with  congresses,  with  em 
bassies,  and  with  treaties,"  which  Mr.  McMaster  re 
gards  as  of  secondary  importance. 

But  though  they  were  chiefly  so  concerned,  never 
theless  molecular  action  was  going  on  which  affected 
their  moral  and  intellectual  character ;  it  was  due, 
however,  neither  to  the  state  nor  to  popular  action,  but 
to  forces  entirely  overlooked  by  Mr.  McMaster,  or  so 
treated  by  him  as  to  afford  no  indication  of  their 
power.  For  when  George  Whitefield,  John  Wesley, 
Francis  Asbury,  John  Murray,  Elhanan  Winchester, 
and  Joseph  Priestley  died,  the  people  of  the  United 
States  were  something  quite  different  from  what  they 
would  have  been  had  these  Englishmen  never  lived 
and  labored  on  American  soil.  Asbury's  influence, 
doubtless,  was  the  most  widely  and  most  powerfully 
felt ;  and  it  is,  perhaps,  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  he 
saved  the  West  and  the  Southwest  to  civilization.  For 
as  the  hardy  but  illiterate  people  who  from  the  hills 
of  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  scaled  the  Alleghanies, 
and  from  their  western  slopes  descended  into  the  val 
ley  of  the  Mississippi,  it  was  Asbury  and  the  three 
thousand  Methodist  preachers  ordained  by  him  who 
met  and  organized  them  into  religious  societies,  so  that 
within  twenty  years  from  the  peace  of  1783  these 
trans-Alleghanean  communities  were  nearly  as  well 


290  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

supplied  with  religious  institutions  as  the  older  States 
from  which  they  had  emigrated. 

The  labors  of  Murray  and  Winchester,  the  apostles 
of  Universalism,  also,  were  too  considerable  to  be 
passed  silently  by  in  the  history  of  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  the 
rehabilitation  of  Episcopacy  by  Madison,  Seabury, 
Parker,  Bass,  and  White. 

Of  Priestley's  scientific  and  political  influence  we 
are  told  something,  but  nothing  of  his  theological 
opinions  which  a  little  later  convulsed  New  England 
churches,  and  gained  adherents  from  whom  came  the 
greater  part  of  our  imaginative  literature  even  to  the 
present  day. 

No  reasonable  exception  can  be  taken  to  Mr.  Mc- 
Master's  low  estimate  of  colonial  imaginative  litera 
ture,  and  he  doubtless  places  a  just  value  —  which  is 
high  —  upon  the  theological  speculations  of  those 
days,  which  for  acuteness  and  depth  were  not  sur 
passed  by  any  similar  work  emanating  from  the  Brit 
ish  islands.  But  the  historian  should  not  under 
value  the  political  pamphlets  of  Otis,  Hutchinson,  the 
Adamses,  Jay,  Dickinson,  and  Livingston,  for  they 
have  not  been  surpassed  either  in  the  discussion  of 
great  principles  or  in  their  application  to  practical 
affairs.  The  legal  erudition  of  those  times,  also,  is 
almost  phenomenal,  when  it  is  considered  that  from  a 
people  without  training  in  legal  principles  and  with 
a  profound  distrust  of  lawyers  there  sprang  almost 
at  a  bound,  when  needed,  men  such  as  Gridley,  Prat, 
Adams,  Parsons,  Jay,  Dulaney,  Wythe,  and  Marshall, 
either  of  whom,  with  a  little  special  training,  would 
have  filled  with  credit  the  place  of  Mansfield,  of 
Camden,  or  of  Eldon. 


McMASTERS  HISTORY  291 

The  causes  of  the  literary  poverty  of  men  of  such 
large  and  varied  general  ability  opens  up  an  interest 
ing  field  of  speculation,  but  not  to  be  entered  on  at 
this  time. 

It  is  easier  to  raise  questions  respecting  the  history 
of  the  people  of  the  United  States  than  it  is  to  answer 
them.  Nevertheless,  such  questions  are  legitimate. 
For  example,  Mr.  McMaster  tells  us  that  "  in  the 
Southern  States  education  was  almost  wholly  neg 
lected,  but  nowhere  to  such  an  extent  as  in  South  Car 
olina."  And  yet,  from  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas 
emigrated  to  Kentucky,  Tennessee,  and  Mississippi  a 
race  of  men  like  Daniel  Boone,  Andrew  Jackson, 
George  Rogers  Clarke,  and  John  Sevier,  who  not  only 
wrote  good  hands  (as  their  early  autograph  letters, 
preserved  in  collections,  show),  but  who  seemed  to  be 
fairly  educated  for  civil  affairs,  and  able  to  carry  for 
ward  in  their  new  homes  a  civilization  differing  in 
some  respects  from  that  of  the  East,  but  in  no  respect 
inferior  to  that  of  the  communities  they  left  behind 
them.  These  were  not  the  sons  of  wealthy  planters, 
educated  at  Eton,  at  Winchester,  or  Harrow,  or  even 
at  William  and  Mary  ;  or  of  parents  able  to  provide 
for  them  private  tutors.  The  educational  history  of 
these  emigrants  is  an  interesting  subject  for  investi 
gation. 

The  modification  of  the  character  of  the  descendants 
of  Englishmen  on  this  soil,  already  spoken  of,  was 
brought  about  mainly  by  their  situation.  But  during 
the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  there  had 
come  into  their  life  a  new  force,  —  faith  in  the  power 
of  ideas.  Down  to  that  time  Anglo-Americans,  like 
their  progenitors,  were  men  severely  practical  and 
averse  to  general  propositions.  Their  faith  in  the 


292  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

power  of  creeds  and  dogmas,  religious  and  political, 
was  steadfast.  They  believed  in  heavy  battalions  and 
serried  ranks,  but  with  them  faith  in  the  power  of 
ideas  was  not  even  a  conception.  Their  legislation 
related  to  affairs,  not  to  systems ;  and  the  doctrinaire 
was  not  known  within  their  borders.  But  for  the  last 
century  it  has  been  different,  and  this  difference  is  due 
to  Jefferson.  Where  Jefferson  got  his  idealism  is  a 
mystery ;  for  though  he  has  many  disciples,  he  had  no 
known  master.  It  is  usual  to  attribute  it  to  the  in 
fluence  of  French  writers  —  Kousseau  especially  ;  but 
the  vitality  and  permanence  of  this  element  in  his 
character  suggest  an  original  rather  than  an  acquired 
force.  About  Jefferson  as  the  head  of  a  party,  as  an 
administrator,  and  even  as  a  man,  opinions  may  differ  ; 
but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  was  the  first 
statesman  who  had  faith  in  the  sufficiency  of  ideas  not 
merely  as  tests  of  the  validity  of  political  institutions, 
but  as  a  power  to  subvert  arbitrary  government  and 
overthrow  errors,  however  strongly  intrenched  in  an 
cient  wrong.  In  this  respect  perhaps  he  stands  first 
among  thinkers,  and  certainly  among  the  greatest  of 
those  who  have  profoundly  and  beneficently  modified 
the  character  of  an  entire  people.  His  influence 
seems  destined  to  affect  the  thought  of  mankind. 

De  Tocqueville  has  noticed  this  change.  "  The 
Americans,"  he  says,  "  are  much  more  addicted  to  the 
use  of  general  ideas  than  the  English,  and  entertain 
a  much  greater  relish  for  them :  this  appears  very 
singular  at  first,  when  it  is  remembered  that  the  two 
nations  have  the  same  origin,  that  they  lived  for  cen 
turies  under  the  same  laws,  and  that  they  incessantly 
interchange  their  opinions  and  their  manners.  .  .  . 
They  have  no  philosophical  school  of  their  own,  .  .  . 


McMASTERS  HISTORY  293 

yet  they  have  a  philosophical  method  common  to  the 
whole  people."  The  way  may  have  been  prepared  for 
this  change,  as  he  suggests,  by  their  democratic  habits, 
but  Jefferson  was  the  founder  of  the  school  of  political 
idealists.  He  struck  the  key-note,  first  heard  in  his 
"  Summary  View,"  in  1774,  and  with  a  louder  strain 
sent  it  round  the  world  in  the  great  Declaration.  If 
one  would  see  the  change  produced  by  Jefferson,  let 
him  read  the  Declaration  of  Eights  by  the  Congress 
of  1774,  and  then  the  Declaration  of  Independence  of 
1776.  One  is  a  specification  as  cold  as  an  indictment 
to  be  tried  by  a  petit  jury ;  the  other,  a  trumpet  call 
to  the  race  and  to  the  ages.  It  was  the  comprehen 
siveness  of  Jefferson's  immortal  Declaration  which 
made  it  powerful  in  one  generation  to  sever  the  bands 
of  an  empire,  and  in  another  to  break  the  shackles  of 
four  millions  of  slaves,  and  in  the  present  —  but  who 
shall  forecast  the  future  of  Ireland  or  limit  the  po 
tency  of  Jefferson's  words  ?  To  redress  the  balance 
between  England  and  her  colonies  he  invoked  the 
power  of  ideas.  He  thus  added  to  the  armory  of  a 
struggling  people  a  new  weapon,  —  now  the  dynamics 
of  nationalities,  —  restless,  resistless,  unassailable  by 
fleets  or  armies  ! 

This  force,  which  Jefferson  set  in  motion,  sometimes 
took  a  direction  which  he  did  not  contemplate  and  of 
which  he  would  not  have  approved.  The  real  inspi 
ration  of  the  young  statesmen  who  forced  the  War  of 
1812  was  less  the  local  cry  of  "  free  trade  and  sailors' 
rights  "  than  an  aspiration  towards  nationality,  caught 
not  from  Jefferson,  indeed,  —  for  the  father  of  state 
rights  was  not  a  nationalist,  — but  for  which  they 
were  indebted,  nevertheless,  to  Jefferson's  idealism : 
an  aspiration  to  which  Webster  gave  utterance  at 


294  McMASTER'S  HISTORY 

Bunker  Hill  in  words  never  forgotten,  "  Our  country, 
our  whole  country,  and  nothing  but  our  country  ;  " 
and  again,  even  more  effectively,  in  the  Senate  Cham 
ber,  in  those  other  words,  "  the  Union,  one  and  insep 
arable,"  taken  up  by  the  people  and  realized  after 
four  years  of  civil  war. 

The  advent  of  such  a  force  into  the  life  of  a  people 
is  rare,  and  when  apprehended  in  its  full  significance 
it  is  one  of  the  most  impressive  events  in  their  history ; 
and  its  recognition  is  a  test  of  historic  insight.  It  is 
America's  contribution  to  political  philosophy  ;  and 
if  it  be  thought  to  belong  to  politics  rather  than  to 
history,  it  is,  nevertheless,  an  event  inseparably  con 
nected  with  the  history  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  and  is  fast  becoming  a  part  of  the  history  of 
the  human  race.  As  the  race  moves  down  through  the 
ages,  it  has  a  life  and  progress  which  includes  the  life 
and  progress  of  every  nationality.  Into  this  mighty 
stream  are  affluents  which  bear  on  their  surface  traces 
of  the  soil  and  vegetation  of  their  sources,  and  these 
mark  the  differences  between  nations. 

Mr.  McMaster's  book  is  a  valuable  contribution 
to  our  history,  and  will  be  the  cause  of  work  better 
than  its  own.  His  industrious  collection  of  materials 
and  his  effective  arrangement  and  courageous  presen 
tation  of  them  cannot  fail  to  stimulate  other  workers 
in  the  same  field.  But  he  does  not  always  discrimi 
nate  as  to  the  value  of  authorities,  and  his  history 
suffers  somewhat  in  consequence.  Observations  in 
science,  unless  made  under  conditions  which  insure 
accuracy,  are  of  little  value ;  and  this  is  beginning  to 
be  recognized  in  respect  to  history.  No  conclusions 
should  be  drawn  from  the  unsupported  testimony  of 
such  travelers  as  Anburey  or  Brissot ;  and  sectarian 


McMASTEPCS  HISTORY  295 

and  party  prejudices  often  render  worthless  the  works 
of  native  historians. 

With  these  observations  we  take  leave  of  Mr.  Mc- 
Master's  history.  Where  we  have  received  so  much 
and  of  so  great  value,  it  is  ungracious  to  ask  for  more 
or  for  something  different ;  but  our  just  claims  upon 
Mr.  McMaster  are  limited  only  by  his  ability.  His 
series  of  historical  monographs  is  accepted  with  grat 
itude  ;  but  if  he  has 

".  .  .  .  left  half-told 
The  story" 

which  he  is  able  to  tell  in  full,  —  and  certain  vital 
signs  leave  little  doubt  on  that  point,  —  he  must  for 
give  us  if  we  are  not  entirely  satisfied  with  what  he 
has  already  done. 


JOSIAH  QUINCY,  THE  GEEAT  MAYOR 


AN  ADDRESS  BEFORE  THE  MASSACHUSETTS  SOCIETY  FOB 

PROMOTING  GOOD  CITIZENSHIP,  AT  THE  OLD  SOUTH 

MEETING  HOUSE,  BOSTON,  FEBRUARY  25,  1889 


JOSIAH  QUINCY,  THE  GREAT  MAYOR 


•!N  front  of  the  City  Hall  in  Boston  are  two  statues 
in  bronze  —  one  of  Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  other 
of  Josiah  Quincy.  The  artist  has  represented  Frank 
lin  in  his  old  age  and  the  culminated  splendor  of  his 
fame,  revisiting,  as  he  had  often  expressed  a  desire  to 
do,  the  city  of  his  birth,  and  standing  in  reverential 
attitude,  with  uncovered  head,  before  the  spot  hal 
lowed  by  memories  of  the  old  Boston  Latin  School, 
in  which  he  received  the  rudiments  of  his  education. 
No  better  site  could  have  been  chosen.  With  equal 
felicity  of  position  Josiah  Quincy,  in  the  prime  of 
manhood,  stands  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  inclosure, 
before  the  most  august  symbol  of  the  city  which  he 
had  done  so  much  to  build  up  and  adorn.  As  works 
of  art  these  statues  provoked  the  vituperative  elo 
quence  of  Boston's  most  gifted  orator,  and  I  hear  that 
they  divide  the  opinions  of  experts.  However  this 
may  be,  the  characters  they  commemorate  gain  in 
respect  with  the  passing  years  and  the  spread  of 
letters. 

In  some  circumstances  of  their  lives  Benjamin 
Franklin  and  Josiah  Quincy  resembled  each  other; 
in  others,  they  were  strongly  contrasted.  Natives  of 
the  same  town,  each  represented  the  class  from  which 
he  sprung,  and  each  had  no  inconsiderable  influence 
in  shaping  the  institutions  of  Philadelphia  and  of 


300  JOSIAH  'QUINCY 

Boston,  in  which  they  severally  resided.  Franklin 
was  of  the  people,  without  fortune  or  interest  or 
social  position ;  but  by  self-culture  and  industrious 
use  of  his  powers  and  opportunities,  he  became  dis 
tinguished  at  home  and  abroad,  and  here,  if  nowhere 
else,  is  known  as  "  the  Great  Bostonian."  Josiah 
Quincy,  on  the  other  hand,  was  of  "  good  family  "  — 
a  phrase  which  denoted  the  highest  distinction  of 
rank  accorded  in  the  Boston  of  those  days.  His  for 
tune,  "counseling  ignoble  ease  and  peaceful  sloth," 
was  ample  ;  but  closing  his  ears  to  the  sirens,  he  bound 
himself  to  laborious  days,  and,  having  acquired  repu 
tation  in  national  affairs,  so  successfully  promoted  the 
development  of  municipal  institutions  that  he  is  now 
best  known  as  "  the  Great  Mayor." 

The  life  of  Franklin,  often  written,  has  been  read 
in  many  lands,  and  thousands,  following  his  precepts 
and  example,  have  lived  successful  lives.  Josiah 
Quincy's  life  by  his  son,  a  model  of  literary  skill  and, 
as  a  filial  biography,  unsurpassed  if  ever  equaled,  is 
less  known  than  it  ought  to  be ;  for  in  the  field  of 
civic  affairs,  everywhere  now  assuming  importance,  I 
know  of  no  more  instructive  or  exemplary  life  ever 
lived  in  America.  That  phase  of  it  —  its  instructive 
and  exemplary  quality  —  is  my  theme  this  evening. 

He  was  born  here  in  Boston,  on  the  easterly  side  of 
Washington  Street,  a  few  doors  southerly  from  Milk 
Street,  February  4,  1772 ;  was  graduated  at  Harvard 
College  in  1790 ;  admitted  to  the  bar  in  1793 ;  and 
married  in  1797.  In  May,  1804,  he  was  elected  to 
the  State  Senate,  and  in  October  of  the  same  year,  at 
the  age  of  thirty-three,  a  representative  to  Congress, 
where  he  sat  until  March  4,  1813.  Declining  further 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  301 

service  in  that  body,  with  the  exception  of  several 
terms  in  the  General  Court  and  the  session  of  the 
Constitutional  Convention  of  1820,  he  was  in  private 
life,  giving  much  attention  to  the  cultivation  of  his 
ancestral  acres  at  Quincy,  until  his  appointment  in 
1821  as  judge  of  the  Municipal  Court  of  Boston, 
over  which  he  presided  for  two  years.  From  May, 
1823,  to  January,  1829,  he  was  mayor  of  Boston. 
Failing  of  reelection,  he  was  chosen  president  of  Har 
vard  College  in  1829,  and  held  that  office  for  sixteen 
years,  residing  at  Cambridge.  After  his  resignation 
of  the  presidency  in  1845,  he  returned  to  Boston, 
resuming  his  summer  residence  at  Quincy,  and  there, 
in  his  house  overlooking  the  sea,  he  died,  July  1, 
1864,  at  the  great  age  of  ninety-two  years,  four 
months,  and  twenty-seven  days. 

Few  of  our  public  men  have  lived  so  long  or 
through  so  many  extraordinary  events.  His  life  be 
gan  little  less  than  a  year  before  Samuel  Adams  in 
Faneuil  Hall  reported  the  "  Rights  of  the  Colonists," 
in  one  of  the  most  important  state  papers  of  the 
Revolutionary  period  ;  and  it  ended  little  less  than  a 
year  before  Lee  surrendered  his  army  at  Appomattox 
Court  House.  At  the  first  period  the  Revolution, 
which  severed  an  empire  and  made  thirteen  subject 
colonies  independent  States,  had  become  inevitable ; 
at  the  second,  the  last  slave  shackle  in  Anglo-Saxon 
lands  had  been  broken,  and  the  decree  of  God  was  on 
the  wing  which  reunited  the  great  Republic  as  one, 
free  and  inseparable.  What  momentous  events  inter 
vened  !  The  first  shot  at  Lexington  and  the  bloody 
carnage  at  Bunker  Hill ;  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence  and  Cornwallis's  surrender  at  Yorktown ;  the 
Treaty  of  Peace,  in  1783,  and  the  framing  of  the 


302  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  1787 ;  the  acqui 
sition  of  Louisiana,  including  territory  west  of  the 
Mississippi,  more  than  doubling  the  area  of  the  Ke- 
public ;  and  the  War  of  1812,  which  first  aroused  the 
spirit  of  nationality  in  the  people,  and  on  the  sea 
compelled  the  respect  of  the  world ;  the  adoption  of 
an  economic  system  developing  antagonism  between 
the  manufacturing  North  and  the  cotton-growing 
South,  at  one  time  seriously  threatening  the  Union, 
and  the  beginning  of  hostility  to  slavery  which  finally 
led  to  its  extinction  by  civil  war. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Kevolution  Josiah  Quincy 
was  too  young  to  have  intelligently  observed  what 
was  passing  about  Boston  between  1774  and  1776,  if, 
during  these  years,  there  had  not  been  found  a  more 
safe  retreat  for  him  at  Norwich,  Connecticut ;  but 
from  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  nothing  of  pub 
lic  interest  escaped  his  notice. 

There  was,  however,  one  interesting  event  of  which 
he  may  have  had  a  vague  recollection.  It  was  the 
"  tea  party "  of  December  16,  1773.  In  the  after 
noon  of  that  day,  his  father,  standing  here  in  the  Old 
South  where  I  now  stand,  and  speaking  to  those  who 
sat  where  you  now  sit,  said  in  words  which  have  be 
come  historical :  "  It  is  not,  Mr.  Moderator,  the  spirit 
which  vapors  within  these  walls  that  must  stand  us  in 
stead.  The  exertions  of  this  day  call  forth  events 
which  will  make  a  very  different  spirit  necessary  for 
our  salvation"  —  words  true  now,  and  as  applicable 
to  affairs  in  this  city  to-day  as  they  were  more  than  a 
century  ago  when  they  reechoed  from  these  walls.  In 
the  evening  of  that  afternoon  the  infantile  ears  of  his 
son  must  have  heard,  though  they  heeded  not,  the 
tramp  of  men  hurrying  past  his  father's  door  to  gather 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  303 

in  this  place ;  and  they  must  have  heard  the  war- 
whoop  which  came  up  out  of  the  darkness  of  the  street 
and  was  responded  to  by  shouts  from  these  dimly 
lighted  galleries.  Then  Griffin's  Wharf ;  then  the 
Boston  Port  Bill ;  then  Lexington  and  Bunker  Hill ; 
then  the  Siege  of  Boston  and  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  —  events  which  he  could  have  known  only 
as  we  know  them. 

Though  Josiah  Quincy  doubtless  knew  Samuel 
Adams,  it  does  not  appear  that  he  sought  his  society. 
Samuel  Adams  was  much  the  older,  and  they  were  of 
different  political  parties.  But  with  John  Hancock, 
who  married  Dorothy  Quincy,  his  father's  cousin,  he 
was  better  acquainted,  and  once  at  least  was  his  guest 
in  the  old  Hancock  House,  now  unfortunately  no 
longer  standing.  Honor  to  the  man,  the  President 
of  this  Society,  who,  with  a  just  sense  of  the  value  of 
patriotic  associations  to  good  citizenship,  did  so  much 
to  save  the  Old  South ! 

He  knew  Washington  also,  and  so  did  Mrs.  Quincy. 
Their  estimates  of  the  personality  of  that  great  man 
were  widely  different,  she  regarding  him  as  "  more 
than  a  hero  —  a  superior  being,  as  far  above  the  com 
mon  race  of  mankind  in  majesty  and  grace  of  personal 
bearing  as  in  moral  grandeur;"  and  he,  forsooth,  as 
not  unlike  "  the  gentlemen  who  used  to  come  to  Bos 
ton  in  those  days  to  attend  the  General  Court  from 
Hampden  or 'Franklin  County,  in  the  western  part  of 
the  State  —  a  little  stiff  in  his  person,  not  a  little 
formal  in  his  manner,  and  not  particularly  at  ease  in 
the  presence  of  strangers."  In  this  difference  of  esti 
mate  we  see  one  touch  of  nature  which  makes  all  mar 
ried  couples  kin. 


304  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

I  have  given  you  a  mere  outline  of  Mr.  Quincy's 
life.  It  was  long,  useful,  honorable.  In  whatever 
field  of  labor  he  entered  he  soon  became  distinguished ; 
but  when,  in  May,  1823,  in  the  second  year  of  the 
city,  Josiah  Quincy  became  its  mayor,  he  found  the 
place  suited  more  than  any  other,  I  think,  to  his  tal 
ents  and  his  moral  qualities ;  and  in  the  six  years 
that  he  served  the  city  he  did  the  work  which  gave 
him  his  highest  fame,  and  in  the  retrospect  of  a  long 
and  varied  career  the  most  satisfaction. 

His  new  office  certainly  was  less  conspicuous  as  a 
theatre  of  action  than  the  floor  of  the  House  when 
filled  by  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  Clay,  Calhoun,  Web 
ster,  and  Macon ;  and  the  proceedings  of  the  city  gov 
ernment  attracted  less  attention,  if  any,  in  Europe 
or  in  this  country,  than  national  affairs  from  the 
Embargo  of  1807  to  the  Peace  of  1815.  And  when, 
in  1823,  Josiah  Quincy,  in  the  prime  of  life  and  in 
the  fullness  of  his  great  powers,  reengaged  in  public 
affairs  as  the  chief  magistrate  of  a  small  city,  it  is  not 
unlikely  that  his  old  associates  at  Washington,  whom 
he  had  led  in  attack,  and  some  of  whom  had  felt  the 
vigor  of  his  onset,  regarded  the  change  of  position  as 
a  descent.  Even  in  this  day  of  grace  the  mayoralty 
of  a  great  city,  which  with  its  grand  possibilities  to 
all  sincere  men  might  well  seem  the  summit  of  a 
career,  is  too  often  looked  upon  as  a  stepping-stone. 

On  the  other  hand,  when,  in  1829,  he  became  presi 
dent  of  the  oldest  and  most  conspicuous  college  in 
the  land,  and  not  unknown  in  Europe,  it  was  doubt 
less  thought  that  Mr.  Quincy  at  length  had  reached  a 
position  more  worthy  of  his  great  abilities  and  of  his 
rich  and  varied  culture.  But  it  is  a  fair  question 
whether  during  the  eight  years  he  was  in  Congress, 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  305 

where,  encountering  Henry  Clay  without  discomfiture, 
he  delivered  a  series  of  speeches,  in  the  judgment  of 
Webster  the  best  of  that  period,  or  during  the  sixteen 
years  when  he  was  president  of  Harvard  College  and 
rescued  it  from  financial  peril,  reformed  its  adminis 
tration,  and  placed  it  on  a  firm  basis,  he  did  a  work 
so  peculiarly  his  own,  or  one  so  far  beyond  the  powers 
of  other  men,  or  by  which  he  desired  or  deserved  to 
be  remembered,  as  that  of  the  six  years  when  he  was 
mayor  of  Boston. 

Mr.  Quincy,  voluntarily  retiring  from  Congress  on 
March  4,  1813,  never  officially  reengaged  in  national 
affairs,  to  the  regret  of  his  friends  and,  as  his  son 
suggests,  possibly  to  his  own  in  later  years.  I  think 
we  need  not  share  that  feeling.  Doubtless  with 
opportunity  he  would  have  acquired  great  distinction, 
and  possibly  be  more  widely  known  to-day.  We  now 
see,  however,  that  John  Quincy  Adams  accomplished 
everything  in  diplomacy  or  in  national  administra 
tion  that  Mr.  Quincy  could  have  done,  nor  could  Mr. 
Webster's  senatorial  career  have  been  surpassed.  But 
what  other  American  known  to  history  could  have 
equaled  Mr.  Quincy's  work  in  municipal  affairs;  or 
who  will  presume  to  determine  its  relative  importance 
to  that  of  either  of  his  great  compeers  ? 

I  have  no  desire  to  magnify  the  subject  assigned 
to  me.  Certainly  I  have  none  to  overestimate  the 
relative  value  of  different  periods  of  service  in  Mr. 
Quincy's  life,  and  still  less  to  underrate  the  service  of 
those  who,  from  John  Phillips  to  the  present  hour, 
have  filled  the  mayor's  chair  with  honor.  Boston  has 
been  fortunate  in  the  selection  of  her  chief  magis 
trates  ;  but  by  any  standard  and  by  any  comparison 
Mr.  Quincy's  work  as  mayor  was  a  great  work  of 


306  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

enduring  value,  and  his  place  is  high  up  among  able 
and  useful  men  of  his  age  and  country. 

I  think  we  may  safely  go  farther,  and  say  that  in 
the  department  of  American  municipal  affairs  no  one 
of  his  countrymen  ever  had  a  wider,  more  profound, 
more  permanent,  or  more  beneficent  influence  than 
had  Josiah  Quincy  as  mayor  of  Boston.  This  was 
due  in  part,  no  doubt,  to  the  fact  that  Boston  was  one 
of  the  earliest  incorporated  cities  in  the  country,  and 
perhaps  the  first  to  bring  all  departments  of  its  gov 
ernment  into  that  harmonious  adjustment  which  made 
it  a  pattern  for  other  cities  in  the  United  States,  and, 
in  certain  particulars,  for  some  in  Europe.  It  is 
equally  true  that  Josiah  Quincy,  like  all  men  essen 
tially  great,  recognized  the  advantages  of  his  position 
and  made  the  most  of  them  ;  and  so  far  as  he  made 
Boston  what  it  was,  and  as  widely  and  permanently 
as  it  has  influenced  the  institutions  of  other  cities,  so 
wide  and  permanent  ought  to  be  his  just  fame.  Such 
was  his  opportunity.  Then  came  his  hour  ;  and  I 
think  he  made  it  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  municipal 
government. 

Who  and  what  then  was  Josiah  Quincy ;  how  did 
he  equip  himself " for  his  work;  for  what  do  his  life, 
his  character,  and  his  services  stand  to  us  ? 

Here  was  a  man  in  rare  combination  of  birth,  tal 
ents,  personal  accomplishments,  and  estate  —  the  most 
enviable  man  of  his  day  in  America.  That  was  his 
good  fortune.  It  is  our  fortune,  if  we  so  will,  that 
there  was  nothing  in  any  of  the  essential  circum 
stances  of  his  life,  or  his  character,  or  conduct,  which 
we  cannot  imitate,  adopt,  and  follow.  And  it  is  just 
this  imi table  and  exemplary  quality  which  makes  him, 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  307 

on  the  whole,  the  best  model  hitherto  appearing  in 
our  American  life  upon  which  to  form  ourselves. 
The  consummate  genius  of  Henry  Clay,  who  first 
aroused  the  spirit  of  nationality  in  the  people,  or 
of  Webster,  who  moulded  the  Constitution  to  it,  or 
of  Lincoln,  who  called  a  million  of  armed  men  to 
its  defense,  so  far  transcends  the  limits  of  ordinary 
rational  aspiration  as  to  make  imitation  ridiculous. 
Had  Mr.  Quincy  belonged  to  that  class  of  men,  in 
despair  we  might  turn  off  the  lights  and,  in  the  seclu 
sion  of  our  homes,  giving  rein  to  imagination,  vainly 
identify  ourselves  with  those  rare  spirits  who  have 
appeared  to  dazzle,  to  delight,  and  to  elude  us.  Hap 
pily  for  us,  in  what  he  did  for  good  government,  or  in 
what  his  example  may  inspire  us  to  do  for  good  gov 
ernment,  he  was  of  a  different  order,  though  I  think 
we  shall  quite  as  soon  see  another  Henry  Clay,  or 
Daniel  Webster,  or  possibly  Abraham  Lincoln,  as 
another  Josiah  Quincy.  Each  in  some  particulars 
surpassed  him.  But  in  the  genius  of  character  —  in 
the  combination  of  intellectual  and  moral  qualities  — 
he  has  had  no  superior  in  our  American  life.  And 
it  is  character  which  finally  prevails;  which  moulds 
institutions  and  forms  a  people  for  greatness  ;  which 
gathers  to  itself  and  expresses  what  is  best  and  most 
permanent  in  race  qualities.  It  is  the  dominating 
and  permanent  influence  on  society.  The  stream  finds 
its  path,  not  by  the  lights  which  glitter  along  its 
course,  nor  by  sun,  moon,  or  stars  above,  but  by  its 
headlands  and  firm-set  shores.  Our  Puritans  pre 
vailed,  not  because  of  the  intellectual  greatness  of 
one,  but  because  many  were  great  in  character ;  and 
so  it  must  ever  be.  Great  as  were  Mr.  Quincy's  abil 
ities,  his  preeminence  was  in  character.  And  it  is 


308  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

this  which  draws  us  to  the  Old  South  to-night ;  not 
to  search  his  life  for  entertaining  anecdotes  —  of 
which  there  are  many  —  or  points  effective  in  biogra 
phical  description.  With  set  purpose  I  shall  pass 
over  everything,  however  attractive,  which  is  not  pro 
fitable  for  doctrine,  for  reproof,  for  correction,  or  for 
instruction  in  the  righteousness  of  citizenship.  I  wish 
to  discern  in  his  life  and  character  and  services,  if  I 
may,  whatever  will  instruct  and  inspire  us  to  the  for 
mation  of  like  character,  to  undertake  similar  services 
so  far  as  our  circumstances  allow,  and  to  act  with 
the  same  fidelity  to  duty.  Failing  in  this,  I  fail 
utterly. 

Mr.  Quincy  did  not,  like  Franklin,  raise  himself 
from  poverty  to  affluence  and  power  ;  but  he  was  ex 
posed  to  perils  which  Franklin  escaped  —  perils  which 
most  of  us  escape  ;  perils  of  social  position  as  the 
only  son  of  an  eminent  revolutionary  patriot  enrolled 
by  great  services  and  early  death  among  the  martyrs ; 
of  his  singularly  attractive  personality  —  a  fatal  gift 
to  one  of  less  austere  self-control  ;  of  his  fortune,  per 
mitting  a  life  of  elegant  leisure  elevated  by  no  sincere 
purpose  ;  of  an  hereditary  domain  crowned  by  an  his 
toric  mansion  hospitable  to  illustrious  visitors  from 
other  lands,  as  well  as  his  own,  including  three  Presi 
dents  of  the  United  States  —  a  social  distinction  satis 
fying  to  a  moral  sense  less  robust,  less  exacting  than 
his  own.  How  many  have  been  wrecked  by  perils 
which  Josiah  Quincy  avoided  ;  how  few  have  acknow 
ledged  the  obligations  he  assumed ;  how  many  have 
laid  down  the  burdens  he  carried  nearly  a  hundred 
years ;  how  many,  withholding,  or  in  disgust  with 
drawing,  themselves  from  public  affairs  for  which 
they  are  eminently  fitted  by  education,  fortune,  and 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  309 

social  position,  have  yielded  to  the  seductions  of  plea 
sures,  not  always  innocent,  and  lived  their  lives  and 
exhausted  their  gifts  with  no  results  of  value  to  them 
selves  or  to  others ! 

Franklin  and  Quincy  were  both  great  men ;  and  it 
is  not  their  least  —  perhaps  it  is  their  highest  —  claim 
to  grateful  remembrance  that  each,  pushing  aside  the 
obstacles  and  escaping  the  perils  which  beset  him, 
made  the  most  of  his  powers  and  opportunities. 
Higher  honor  no  man  ever  gained  than  this;  than 
this  of  no  man  God  requires  more.  Seldom  has  the 
same  town  produced  two  such  men,  each  recognized 
as  the  best  type  of  some  characteristic  trait  of  its 
people  —  Franklin  of  their  thrift,  the  result  of  right 
conduct;  Josiah  Quincy  of  their  fitness  for  citizen 
ship,  which  for  two  hundred  years,  in  peace  and  in  war, 
had  made  Boston  a  most  conspicuous  and  influential 
municipality ;  himself  to  become  more  widely  known 
as  the  rights  and  duties  of  citizenship  are  accorded 
their  just  place  in  the  education  and  life  of  the  peo 
ple,  as  they  must  inevitably  be  with  the  development 
of  republican  government. 

Mr.  Quincy's  talents  were  great,  so  great  that  more 
safely  than  most  men  he  could  have  dispensed  with 
laborious  preparation  for  his  public  work ;  but,  save 
John  Adams  and  his  son,  John  Quincy,  I  know  no 
one  of  our  countrymen  who  so  assiduously  prepared 
for  it.  From  early  manhood  he  fitted  himself  for 
citizenship  with  very  clear  notions  of  its  value  and 
just  demands  ;  and  he  cultivated  his  powers  by  an 
exhaustive  study  of  every  question  likely  to  engage 
them. 

Although  completely  equipped  for  office,  Josiah 
Quincy,  so  far  as  I  can  discover,  never  sought  it ;  nor, 


310  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

what  is  quite  as  much  to  his  credit  considering  his 
easy  fortune,  did  he  ever  refuse  it.  I  think  we  may 
safely  say  that  he  never  accepted  office  for  its  honors 
or  its  emoluments,  nor  declined  it  to  escape  its  labors, 
its  responsibilities,  or  even  its  obloquy.  When  he 
accepted  the  mayoralty  it  was  not  that  he  might  make 
himself  famous,  but,  as  he  hoped,  that  he  might 
make  the  city  eminent  for  good  order,  for  honest 
government,  and  for  the  prosperity  of  its  people  — 
make  it 

"  Athens  the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts 
And  eloquence,  native  to  famous  wits 
Or  hospitable  ; " 

nor  did  it  change  his  determination  or  his  conduct  by 
a  hair's  breadth  when  he  foresaw,  as  he  did  from  the 
beginning,  that  after  such  services  the  people  would 
reject  him. 

He  succeeded  John  Phillips  as  mayor,  in  May,  1823, 
and  held  the  office  six  years.  The  history  of  his  admin 
istration  being  in  some  sort  a  "  Tract  for  the  Times," 
I  desire  to  preface  it  by  recalling  to  your  recollection 
the  state  of  municipal  affairs  in  Boston  in  1821,  at  the 
time  the  people  were  discussing  their  fundamental 
government  —  whether  it  should  remain,  as  for  two 
hundred  years  it  had  been,  essentially  democratic,  or 
be  changed  more  completely  to  a  representative  gov 
ernment.  An  interesting  question  not  only  in  Boston 
but  elsewhere ;  for,  about  the  time  when  Mr.  Quincy 
was  giving  attention  to  the  subject,  Guizot,  who  had 
been  of  the  ministry  of  Louis  XVIIL,  in  which  he 
took  an  active  part  in  the  establishment  of  represen 
tative  government  in  France,  was  preparing  a  course 
of  lectures,  afterwards  expanded  and  published,  in 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  311 

1852,  as  "  The  History  of  the  Origin  of  Representative 
Government  in  Europe."  Guizot  believed  in  repre 
sentative  government,  and  yet  when  he  published  that 
work  he  had  witnessed  the  bad  fortune  of  the  experi 
ment  in  France  in  1820,  the  severer  test  of  it  in  1830, 
and  its  disastrous  failure  when  Louis  Napoleon  seized 
the  government  in  1851.  Nevertheless  his  faith  en 
dured,  and  in  the  wreck  of  hopes  and  reasonable  ex 
pectations,  with  sublime  serenity  he  said  that  "  among 
the  infinite  illusions  of  human  vanity  we  must  num 
ber  those  of  misfortune  ;  whether  as  peoples  or  indi 
viduals,  in  public  or  in  private  life,  we  delight  to 
persuade  ourselves  that  our  trials  are  unprecedented, 
and  that  we  have  to  endure  evils  and  surmount  obsta 
cles  previously  unheard  of.  How  deceitful  is  this 
consolation  of  pride  and  suffering !  God  has  made 
the  condition  of  men,  of  all  men,  more  severe  than 
they  are  willing  to  believe ;  and  he  causes  them  at  all 
times  to  purchase  at  a  dearer  price  than  they  had  an 
ticipated  the  success  of  their  labors  and  the  progress 
of  their  destiny.  Let  us  accept  this  stern  law  without 
a  murmur ;  let  us  courageously  pay  the  price  which 
God  puts  upon  success,  instead  of  basely  renouncing 
success  itself." 

It  heightens  our  respect  for  Mr.  Quincy  that,  though 
he  was  opposed  to  a  city  charter  and  resisted  it  by 
speech  and  pen  as  long  as  there  was  any  chance  of 
defeating  it,  yet,  when  it  was  adopted,  with  sincerity 
and  untiring  labor  he  devoted  his  powers  and  his  time 
to  make  it  successful. 

Like  some  other  able  men  of  his  day,  he  believed 
the  pure  democracy  of  the  town  meeting  more  suited 
to  the  character  of  the  people  of  New  England  and 
less  liable  to  corruption  and  abuse  than  a  more  com- 


312  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

pact  government,  which,  with  all  its  checks  and  bal 
ances,  checks  after  the  collision  and  balances  after  the 
load  is  overturned  quite  as  often  as  before  —  a  system 
which  breeds  confidential  clerks  and  swells  the  popu 
lation  of  Montreal — a  sort  of  "  Waterbury  watch  " 
affair,  out  of  which  you  get  no  more  time  than  you 
put  into  it ! 

After  nearly  seventy  years  of  representative  city 
government  it  is  premature  to  say  what  form  it  will 
ultimately  take  ;  whether  it  will  return  to  the  old 
democratic  simplicity,  if  some  practicable  scheme  can 
be  devised,  or  still  further  simplify  representation  by 
abolishing  all  intermediaries,  such  as  the  Board  of 
Aldermen  and  Common  Council,  and,  intrusting  every 
thing  to  the  Mayor,  with  such  heads  of  departments 
as  he  may  choose,  hold  him  responsible  for  good  gov 
ernment.  This  has  one  advantage  of  a  monarchy.  If 
the  people  dislike  the  monarch  they  can  decapitate 
him,  as  they  often  have  done  ;  with  representative 
bodies  this  is  not  quite  so  convenient,  though  often 
quite  as  desirable  and  necessary  ! 

It  took  six  thousand  years  to  ascertain  whether, 
by  just  law,  the  sun  should  revolve  around  the  earth 
as  a  centre,  or  the  earth  around  the  sun.  Copernicus 
settled  that  question ;  and  we  await  the  advent  of  an 
equal  genius  to  adjust  the  revolution  of  political  bod 
ies  agreeably  to  the  divine  order.  In  the  mean  time 
we  must  wait,  but  not  idly.  As  we  ourselves  have  to 
do,  so  did  Mr.  Quincy  take  things  as  he  found  them 
—  not  altogether  as  he  would  have  chosen.  When  he 
came  to  the  government  he  found  matters  much  as 
they  are  now.  Then  there  were  proportionally  as  many 
who  pleaded,  as  we  do,  in  excuse  for  declining  par 
ticipation  in  public  affairs,  that  their  opinions,  tastes, 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  313 

and  what  seemed  to  them  right  modes  of  action,  were 
so  different  from  those  of  a  large  part  of  the  people 
and  so  unlikely  to  result  in  success  that  it  was  hardly 
worth  while  to  waste  their  energies  in  the  vain  endea 
vor  to  secure  good  government ;  that  matters  were  in 
a  bad  way  doubtless,  but  that  they  could  better  bear 
the  ills  of  bad  government  than  afford  the  time  re 
quired  for  their  correction  ;  that  a  few  right-minded 
people  were  of  small  account  among  so  many  wrong- 
minded,  and  at  worst  that  they  were  as  well  off  as 
others.  Mr.  Quincy  had  quite  as  good  reason  as  we 
have  for  impatience,  discouragement,  and  disgust  with 
popular  ignorance,  unreasonableness,  and  caprice,  with 
the  greed  of  the  selfish  and  the  indifference  of  well- 
to-do  people. 

The  change  from  the  old  town  government  to  a  city 
government,  requiring  a  surrender  of  methods  dear 
to  the  people  by  immemorial  usage  and  the  adop 
tion  of  new  methods  necessarily  abridging  many  of 
their  former  liberties,  caused  discontent,  which  in 
creased  rather  than  diminished  after  their  first  year's 
experience  of  the  new  system.  For  two  hundred 
years  the  town  government  had  performed  its  func 
tions,  upon  the  whole,  with  results  satisfactory  to 
the  people.  It  was  their  own  —  to  them  a  great 
merit ;  for  in  it  they  made  their  power  felt  without 
much  dilution  by  passing  through  a  representative 
medium.  It  was  economical  —  another  merit ;  for 
the  people  were  economical.  They  treated  the  un 
fortunate  and  vicious  classes  with  slight  regard  to 
health,  comfort,  or  their  possible  restoration  to  better 
conditions.  Streets  were  narrow,  ill  paved,  unswept, 
and  drainage  disgracefully  inadequate  ;  but  wide 
streets,  well  paved,  well  lighted,  and  well  drained 


314  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

were  costly  luxuries,  to  be  had  only  by  taxation. 
They  had  rebelled  against  British  taxation,  and  quar 
reled  with  the  domestic  article.  They  disliked  the 
thing,  by  whatever  name.  Consequently  their  legisla 
tion  was  from  hand  to  mouth,  with  little  regard  to 
system  or  prevision  of  remote  consequences,  good  or 
bad. 

This  was  a  serious  embarrassment  to  Mr.  Quincy, 
whose  broad  and  forecasting  mind  projected  measures 
requiring  time  for  their  perfection  and  for  yielding 
their  best  results.  Of  course  the  people  were  not  un 
aware  of  the  impracticability  of  7,000  voters  assem 
bling  in  one  place,  usually  Faneuil  Hall,  to  choose 
town  officers,  levy  taxes,  and  determine  with  due 
deliberation  the  various  and  complicated  legislative 
and  executive  affairs  for  a  population  of  40,000  ;  and, 
as  we  shall  see,  they  had  delegated  some  of  the  more 
important  functions  to  executive  boards.  Neverthe 
less,  five  times  between  1784  and  1821  they  had  re 
fused  a  charter,  and  finally  accepted  it  only  by  a 
majority  of  1,500  of  the  5,000  voters  who  took  the 
trouble  to  express  their  wishes  at  the  polls. 

The  government  had  changed,  but  the  people  re 
mained  the  same.  Old  habits  were  strong.  They 
missed  their  March  meeting  —  a  sort  of  festival  day 
on  which  they  had  assembled  in  Faneuil  Hall,  chosen 
town  officers,  and  done  their  town  business,  as  had 
their  fathers  for  two  hundred  years,  and  outside  ex 
changed  friendly  greetings  and  the  news,  and  now  and 
then  made  sharp  bargains.  For  the  young  were  frolic 
and  sport  and  gingerbread  and  fire-crackers,  dear  to 
boys.  How  different  from  all  this  were  cold,  isolated 
ward  rooms,  with  no  debates  and  no  James  Otis,  or 
Samuel  Adams,  or  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  the  most  bril- 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  315 

liant  of  orators  until  Wendell  Phillips  arose  in  Faneuil 
Hall  to  electrify  the  peninsula  and  recall  the  austere 
virtues  of  the  Puritans. 

Nor  was  sentimental  attachment  wanting.  The 
town  meeting  had  endeared  itself  to  the  people  in 
affording  opportunities  for  resisting  every  form  of 
royal  predominance,  civil  or  ecclesiastical,  which  inter 
fered  with  their  rights,  real  or  imaginary,  and  by  its 
agency  in  bringing  on  and  carrying  forward  the  Revo 
lution.  Some  of  the  older  men  had  seen  how  effec 
tively,  how  wisely,  Samuel  Adams  had  handled  it,  and 
generally,  though  not  always,  how  unselfishly.  It  had 
been  the  palladium  of  their  liberties,  and  they  were 
sorry  to  give  it  up. 

Now  these  principles,  reasons,  and  prejudices,  al 
though  shared  by  Josiah  Quincy,  were  a  serious  hin 
drance  to  his  government,  into  which  they  were  car 
ried  by  the  people,  and  made  themselves  more  and 
more  manifest  as  the  stringency  of  new  rules  interfered 
with  old  customs  and  interests.  There  was  laudation 
of  old  ways  and  much  carping  at  the  new,  chiefly  be 
cause  they  were  new. 

From  a  very  early  day  many  legislative  and  execu 
tive  powers  of  the  town  government  had  been  given 
over  to  Selectmen,  Overseers  of  the  Poor,  Board  of 
Health,  Firewards,  and  Assessors  ;  and  it  came  to  pass 
that  the  first  three  of  these  boards  constituted  a 
Finance  Committee,  which  determined  appropriations, 
assessment  of  taxes,  and  expenditures.  Although  they 
owed  their  election  and  nominally  their  powers  to  the 
people,  practically  they  were  self-perpetuating  oli 
garchies,  which  claimed  to  carry  their  functions  into 
the  new  city  government  in  1822,  and  were  only  sup 
pressed  by  the  tact  and  persistence  of  Mr.  Quincy  in 


316  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

asserting  the  just  authority  of  the  new  government 
under  the  charter. 

When  Mr.  Quincy  became  mayor  the  new  govern 
ment  had  been  running  a  year.  The  first  mayor,  an 
able  and  worthy  gentleman,  does  not  appear  to  have 
given  much  attention  to  municipal  affairs ;  and  other 
public  burdens,  with  failing  health,  prevented  his 
grappling  with  troublesome  questions.  He  left  them 
with  Mr.  Quincy.  The  charter,  as  drafted  by  the 
late  Chief  Justice  Shaw,  was  a  model.  But  paper 
government  was  one  thing,  and  a  working  govern 
ment  was  quite  another  thing  —  a  machine  needing 
adjustment.  This  was  no  easy  matter.  An  indolent, 
easy-going  mayor,  to  whom  conscience  was  of  less 
account  than  comfort,  caring  less  to  have  matters  run 
correctly  than  smoothly,  and  more  solicitous  respect 
ing  his  reelection  than  for  the  public  interests,  would 
have  got  on  with  a  tithe  of  the  trouble  which  Mr. 
Quincy  took  to  himself. 

In  everything  relating  to  the  construction  or  work 
ing  of  the  charter  and  to  the  management  of  city 
affairs,  he  had  a  way  of  his  own.  He  studied  sub 
jects  until  he  knew  them  better  than  any  other  man. 
Of  this,  I  dare  say,  he  was  conscious,  and  perhaps  he 
was  opinionated.  Nevertheless,  he  was  a  just  man, 
judicially  just,  determined,  inflexible,  steadfast.  No 
thing  escaped  his  eye,  and  in  labor  he  was  untiring. 

Here  was  the  right  man  for  the  place,  yet  very 
much  in  the  way,  —  in  the  way  of  all  wrong-headed 
people ;  of  those  whose  private  interests  conflicted 
with  the  public  interests ;  of  all  who  had  jobs  ;  of  all 
who  wished  to  be  left  alone  in  pursuit  of  their  selfish 
courses  or  passions,  regardless  of  the  general  weal. 

In  giving  an  account  of  the  new  mayor's  work  I 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  317 

cannot  go  very  fully  into  details  ;  but  in  general 
terms,  and  with  due  regard  to  facts,  I  think  I  may 
say  that  there  was  no  one  of  our  public  institutions, 
nor  anything  in  the  mode  of  conducting  them,  which 
gave  rank  to  Boston  among  cities  quite  out  of  pro 
portion  to  its  territory  or  population,  and  made  it  a 
model  for  other  cities,  which  either  did  not  originate 
in  the  inventive  mind  of  Josiah  Quincy,  or  owe  to  his 
shaping  hand  completer  development  and  more  benefi 
cent  action.  His  work  covered  public  morals,  health, 
education,  convenience,  and  comfort  ;  streets,  sewers, 
and  water  ;  penal,  reformatory,  and  industrial  institu 
tions  ;  markets,  police,  fire  department,  and  an  in 
cipient  public  garden.  With  efficient  coadjutors  and, 
in  a  general  sense,  the  public  support,  yet  he  was  the 
greatest  factor  in  every  work.  He  inspired,  he  led. 
Before  his  time  mayors  were  often  merely  presiding 
officers,  —  ornamental  figure-heads.  Executive  pow 
ers  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  boards.  Lack  of 
unity  and  efficiency  followed.  Mr.  Quincy  deter 
mined  to  be  mayor.  Therefore  he  gathered  up  all  the 
powers  which  the  charter,  in  express  terms  or  by  fair 
construction,  gave  him,  and  he  used  them  with  results 
before  unknown  ;  not  to  engross  power,  but,  as  he 
said,  "  to  produce  and  fix  in  the  minds  of  all  influen 
tial  classes  of  citizens  a  strong  conviction  of  the  ad 
vantages  of  having  an  active  and  willingly  responsible 
executive,  by  an  actual  experience  of  the  benefits  of 
such  an  administration  of  their  affairs  ;  and  also 
of  their  right  and  duty  of  holding  the  mayor  respon 
sible  in  character  and  office  for  the  state  of  the  police 
and  finances  of  the  city." 

Such  were  Mr.  Quincy's  views  respecting  good  gov 
ernment.     To  bring  it  about  taxed  his  powers  to  the 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


318  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

utmost.  He  succeeded,  and  his  success  was  the  best 
solution  of  the  problem  of  city  government  hitherto 
presented.  The  sequel  is  worth  noting.  After  he 
left  the  mayoralty,  in  1829,  there  set  in  a  departure 
from  his  views,  which  finally  became  wide.  Old  jeal 
ousies  between  the  different  departments  of  govern 
ment  revived.  The  legislative  branch  claimed  a  share 
in  the  powers  of  the  executive  department,  and  both 
in  those  of  the  mayor.  The  General  Court  yielded  to 
the  clamor  for  popular  rights  ;  and  after  a  time  we 
came  to  have  a  government  which,  lacking  unity  of 
power  and  consequent  responsibility,  did  not  govern. 
Matters  finally  came  to  such  a  pass  that,  in  1885,  the 
Legislature  again  intervened  and  remodeled  the  char 
ter  so  as  to  act  more  nearly  in  the  spirit  in  which  Mr. 
Quincy  administered  it  sixty  years  before. 

When  Mr.  Quincy  had  established  the  government 
on  a  good  basis,  he  instituted  a  series  of  reforms, 
more  than  a  score  in  number,  which  gave  to  Boston  a 
high  rank  among  municipalities,  and  made  it  in  many 
respects  a  model  city  ;  a  model  of  institutions  for  the 
criminal,  the  improvident,  and  the  unfortunate ;  of 
well-paved,  clean-kept,  and  well-lighted  streets ;  of 
sewerage  and  systematic  removal  of  public  and  pri 
vate  offal ;  of  administrative  measures  concerning 
public  health,  education,  police,  and  markets ;  of  the 
preservation  of  natural  scenery,  such  as  the  islands  in 
the  harbor,  and  for  the  inauguration  of  a  park  system, 
now  unfolding  itself  with  promise  to  public  health 
and  morals  and  the  sense  of  beauty. 

Without  order  of  time,  and  grouping  some  related 
measures,  I  now  specify  a  few  of  Mr.  Quincy's  ser 
vices.  If  to-day,  or  at  any  time  before  to-day,  Boston 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  319 

has  or  has  had  the  reputation  of  being  one  of  the 
cleanest  and  most  healthy  of  large  cities,  it  is  due 
mainly  to  Josiah  Quincy.  He  took  the  matter  in 
hand  soon  after  his  inauguration  —  and  there  was 
need.  Conflicting  boards  claimed  sole  authority  to 
clean  the  streets  and  remove  offal.  Consequently  the 
work  was  not  well  done.  The  powers  inefficiently  ex 
ercised  by  these  boards  were  transferred  by  legislative 
authority  and  municipal  consent  to  the  mayor  and 
aldermen,  who  got  to  work  with  such  effect  that  "  for 
the  first  time,  on  any  scale  destined  for  universal 
application,  the  broom  was  used  upon  the  streets ; 
every  street,  alley,  court,  and  household  yard,  how 
ever  distant  and  however  obscure,  was  thoroughly 
cleansed."  The  death  rate  was  lessened  and  the  com 
fort  of  the  people  increased. 

With  like  vigor,  and  with  similar  discouragements, 
Mr.  Quincy  overhauled  criminal  and  pauper  institu 
tions.  There  was  an  almshouse  in  the  heart  of  the 
city.  Its  inmates,  allowed  to  wander  through  the 
streets,  some  intoxicated,  some  begging,  had  become  a 
public  nuisance.  For  nearly  a  hundred  years  their 
care  had  been  intrusted  to  the  overseers  of  the  poor, 
excellent  gentlemen,  with  old-time  notions  of  their 
powers  as  well  as  of  the  management  of  paupers. 
With  this  board  he  had  a  contest.  He  won  ;  and, 
as  a  result,  there  were  set  up  on  spacious  grounds  at 
South  Boston,  amidst  healthful  influences,  a  House  of 
Correction,  a  House  of  Industry,  and  a  House  for  the 
Reformation  of  Juvenile  Offenders.  This  change, 
salutary  to  their  inmates,  promoted  the  security  and 
comfort  of  dwellers  in  the  city  proper.  Several  of 
these  institutions  have  since  been  removed  to  Deer 
Island.  The  House  for  Juvenile  Offenders,  which 


320  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

originated  with  Mr.  Quincy,  attracted  the  attention 
of  De  Tocqueville,  sent  by  the  French  government 
in  1832  to  inquire  into  the  penitentiary  system  of  the 
United  States. 

Before  Mr.  Quincy's  time  some  of  the  leading  reli 
gious  societies  had  derived  considerable  revenue  from 
the  sale  of  burial  rights  in  tombs  beneath  their  church 
edifices.  Respectable  medical  practitioners  said  there 
was  no  harm  in  this  ;  but  Mr.  Quincy  effectually  op 
posed  its  continuance  on  the  score  of  public  health, 
and  this  led  to  the  establishment  of  extra-mural  ceme 
teries,  now  so  common,  of  which  Mt.  Auburn  was  the 
first. 

Public  morals,  no  less  than  public  health,  engaged 
his  attention.  There  was  a  district  of  the  city,  now 
quite  respectable,  then  congested  with  jail  -  birds, 
thieves,  miscreants,  and  the  most  abandoned  of  both 
sexes,  who  haunted  houses  of  ill-fame,  and,  issuing 
therefrom,  committed  all  sorts  of  crimes,  including 
murder,  and  in  their  Boston  Alsatia  defied  the  police. 
Mr.  Quincy  took  them  in  hand,  and  shortly  the  worst 
offenders  were  in  the  House  of  Correction  at  South 
Boston.  The  district  was  restored  to  good  order  and 
respectabilit}^,  and  the  city  became  more  secure. 

Mr.  Quincy's  work  appears  at  its  best  only  in  the 
fullest  details,  though  time  does  not  allow  their  re 
cital.  Nothing  within  municipal  authority  escaped 
his  attention  ;  there  was  no  department  which,  after 
his  six  years  of  service,  did  not  show  the  effect  of 
masterly  organization  and  administration.  There  are 
two  subjects,  however,  which  even  in  a  cursory  survey 
of  Mr.  Quincy's  labors  ought  not  to  be  overlooked. 

Every  one  knows,  generally  at  least,  that  Boston 
owes  to  Josiah  Quincy  what  is  now  best  known  as 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  321 

Quincy  Market ;  but  unless  he  has  studied  the  sub 
ject,  no  one  knows  the  change  effected  in  that  section 
of  the  city,  or  the  labor  by  which  private  interests 
were  satisfied  and  the  people  induced  to  engage  in 
an  expensive  work  which  resulted  in  the  erection  of 
"  a  granite  market  house,  two  stories  high,  435  feet 
long,  50  feet  wide,  and  covering  27,000  feet  of  land, 
including  every  essential  accommodation,  at  the  cost 
of  1150,000.  Six  new  streets  were  opened  and  a 
seventh  greatly  enlarged,  including  167,000  square 
feet  of  land,  and  flats,  docks,  and  wharf  rights  were 
obtained  to  the  extent  of  142,000  square  feet ;  and 
all  this  was  accomplished  in  the  centre  of  a  populous 
city,  not  only  without  tax,  debt,  or  burdens  upon 
its  pecuniary  resources,  notwithstanding  that  in  the 
course  of  its  operations  funds  to  the  amount  of  up 
wards  of  $1,100,000  had  been  employed,  but  with 
large  permanent  addition  to  its  real  and  productive 
property." 

It  is  perhaps  less  well  known  that  Mr.  Quincy 
extinguished  private  rights  to  lands  at  the  foot  of  the 
Common,  since  become  part  of  the  Public  Garden, 
which  secured  what  was  then  one  of  the  most  repul 
sive,  now  one  of  the  most  beautiful,  spots  in  the  world, 
and  made  practicable  the  policy  of  the  State,  in  lay 
ing  out  and  filling  up  the  Back  Bay  and  opening 
public  squares,  for  which  the  people  were  not  then 
prepared. 

It  has  been  often  said  by  some  who  were  citizens  of 
Boston  during  Mr.  Quincy's  administration  that  the 
trait  of  his  character  which  most  strongly  impressed 
them,  as  exhibited  on  many  occasions,  was  courage, 
and  that  he  might  well  be  best  remembered  still  as 


322  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

"  the  Fearless  Magistrate."  There  was  one  occasion 
on  which  he  gave  an  example  of  moral  courage  which 
even  in  this  sketch  ought  not  to  be  passed  over.  It 
was  in  respect  to  the  fire  department.  This  organiza 
tion  held  an  important  relation  to  the  property  and 
the  lives  of  the  people.  Numbering  twelve  hundred 
young  men,  bound  together  by  common  associations 
and  common  dangers,  impatient  of  new  ways  and  jeal 
ous  of  any  infringement  on  their  customary  privileges, 
they  were  a  power  at  the  polls  quite  out  of  proportion 
to  their  numbers  —  a  power  which  they  were  not  slow 
to  exert  on  occasion.  Mr.  Quincy's  efforts  in  redu 
cing  the  department  to  stricter  discipline,  and  even 
more,  his  insistence  upon  the  use  of  hose  instead  of 
buckets  and  cisterns  instead  of  pumps,  and  his  bring 
ing  from  Philadelphia  and  New  York  new  and  im 
proved  fire  engines,  had  caused  ill  feeling  which 
showed  itself  in  insubordination  and  acts  of  violence. 
This  state  of  things  prepared  the  way  for  an  outbreak 
in  the  last  year  of  Mr.  Quincy's  administration  on 
the  appointment  of  a  chief  engineer  not  to  the  fire 
men's  liking.  Mr.  Quincy's  resoluteness  in  meeting 
this  exigency,  and  the  promptitude  and  efficiency  with 
which  he  filled  the  places  of  those  who  expected  to 
force  the  mayor's  position  by  tendering  their  resigna 
tion,  showed  the  people  how  fearlessly  he  could  dis 
charge  his  duty  even  at  the  cost  of  his  reelection,  as 
he  foresaw  might  be  and  was  the  case. 

In  estimating  "  the  Great  Mayor,"  it  is  not  enough 
to  look  merely  at  the  amount  and  variety  of  his  ser 
vices.  Though  his  intellect  was  of  a  high  order,  his 
influence  was  largely  in  character,  devotion  to  his 
work,  untiring  industry,  sincerity,  decision  of  manner 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  323 

tempered  by  exactest  courtesy,  cordiality,  helpfulness, 
physical  and  moral  intrepidity.  Some  of  us  saw  him 
in  his  old  age,  the  most  venerable  figure  in  our  streets ; 
others,  at  the  college  before  time  had  bowed  his  form  ; 
but  the  memory  of  few  now  present  reaches  back  to 
the  days  when,  in  the  prime  of  his  long  life  —  with  his 
high-bred  face  no  more  noticeable  man  in  America 1 
—  often  before  the  sun  was  up,  he  rode  his  daily 
round  of  inspecting  the  city ;  or  when,  in  a  riot,  he 
put  himself  at  the  head  of  the  truckmen,  hastily 
extemporized  as  an  auxiliary  police  force,  and  moved 
down  upon  the  mob.  In  every  relation  of  life,  public 
or  private,  his  character,  bearing,  and  personality  gave 
assurance  of  a  man.  Such  qualities  impressed  insti 
tutions  as  well  as  society. 

To  found  a  city,  or  to  establish  institutions  and 
indelibly  stamp  them  by  character  and  services,  has 
ever  been  held  a  great  achievement.  When  Themis- 
tocles,  the  Athenian,  would  boast,  he  said  that  he 
"  could  make  a  small  town  a  great  city."  Mr.  Quincy 
never  boasted,  though  he  was  not  unconscious  that  he 
had  great  powers,  or  that  he  had  wrought  into  the 
fabric  and  texture  of  the  city  what  would  survive  the 
fashions  of  municipal  government.  Since  his  time 
changes  have  taken  place,  and  others  will  doubtless 
follow ;  but  neither  the  work  nor  the  fame  of  Josiah 
Quincy  can  ever  perish.  They  are  on  the  rock.  His 

1  The  likeness  facing  the  title-page  is  from  a  portrait  painted  by 
Stuart  when  Mr.  Quincy  was  mayor,  and  is  one  of  the  four  of  him 
in  oil  which  remain.  But  in  none  of  them  can  we  see  him  as  he 
appeared  on  taking  his  degree,  in  peach-colored  coat,  white  satin 
small-clothes  with  silk  stockings,  and  powdered  hair ;  nor  in  the 
splendid  uniform  of  the  "  Huzzars."  Page  painted  him  in  his  robes 
as  president  of  the  university,  and  Story  made  a  statue  which  is 
regarded  as  one  of  his  best  works.  There  are  also  portrait  busts  of 
him  by  Greenough  and  Crawford. 


324  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

mayoralty  was  great  in  economic  and  material  results 
—  promoted  cleanliness,  order,  comfort ;  but  was  even 
greater,  I  think,  in  its  successful  endeavor  after  pub 
lic  virtue,  purity,  and  social  right. 

In  the  lowest  and  least  complete  estimate  of  his 
services  Mr.  Quincy  earned  the  respect  of  his  con 
stituents  and  the  benediction  of  later  generations ;  but 
the  former  rejected  him  and  we  are  in  danger  of  for 
getting  him.  This  ought  not  so  to  be,  more  for  our 
own  sake  than  for  his.  After  he  had  filled  the  office 
of  mayor  for  six  years  with  assiduity  and  success 
unparalleled,  the  people,  in  spite  of  these  services  and 
partly  because  of  them,  refused  to  reelect  him. 

What  then?  Did  all  his  great  services  go  for 
nothing  ?  Was  self-respect  clouded  or  honor  lost  ? 
The  citadel  of  self-respect  is  unassailable  from  with 
out,  nor  is  honor  the  gift  of  the  people.  They  can 
neither  bestow  it  nor  withhold  it.  It  inheres  in  con 
duct  and  in  character,  is  not  gained  save  by  honest 
endeavor,  nor  lost  save  by  misconduct.  It  was  Wash 
ington's  in  the  successes  of  Trenton  and  Princeton, 
and  no  less  his  in  the  defeats  of  Brandywine  and  Ger- 
mantown ;  his  when  Gates  and  Conway,  Mifflin  and 
Samuel  Adams,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  would  have  deposed 
him ;  and  his,  no  less  and  no  more,  when  kings  and 
princes  and  people  in  remote  lands  and  later  ages  pro 
nounced  him  greatest  among  men.  No  —  nothing  is 
so  honorable  as  honor  unjustly  withheld,  no  praise  so 
acclaiming  as  the  silence  of  lips  that  should  speak, 
no  victory  so  victorious  as  defeat  in  just  cause.  For 
when  men  were  silent  and  their  eyes  averted,  as  Josiah 
Quincy  stepped  down  from  the  mayor's  chair  in  1829, 
public  health  and  security  spake  ;  and  so  did  benefi 
cent  institutions ;  and  so  spake  the  new  Faneuil  Hall 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  325 

Market,  and  spacious  warehouses,  and  broad,  well- 
paved  streets  ;  yea  and  the  very  stones  of  those  streets, 
and  the  virtuous  poor  who  owed  to  him  comforts 
before  denied,  and  youth  reclaimed  from  vicious  ways, 
and  just  men  and  women  looked  on  him  with  kindly 
eyes,  and  with  according  voices  proclaimed  honor  to 
whom  honor  unjustly  withheld  was  due ;  and  he  has 
taken  his  place  among  those  dear  to  God,  who  serve 
their  fellow-men  without  expectation  of  reward. 

But  what  is  all  this  to  men  of  limited  capacities  and 
commonplace  opportunities  —  to  us  members  of  the 
Society  for  Promoting  Good  Citizenship,  who  have 
neither  high  aspirations  nor  special  fitness  for  public 
affairs?  Rightly  considered,  it  is  everything;  it  is 
incitement,  endeavor,  success,  or  consolation.  I  have 
said  that  among  great  men  Mr.  Quincy  was  excep 
tionally  rare  in  this :  that  his  character,  his  conduct, 
and  his  services  are  imitable.  There  is  no  one  in  this 
audience,  however  low  in  fortune  or  social  position, 
none  however  high,  that  may  not  wisely  form  him 
self  on  Josiah  Quincy's  character  and  imitate  his  con 
duct  ;  and  if  we  lack  his  opportunities,  at  least  we 
may  remember  that  before  he  was  the  great  Mayor 
he  was  the  great  Citizen ;  and  before  he  was  the  great 
Citizen  he  was  a  good  citizen  —  as  any  one  of  us  may 
be! 

His  political  ethics  were  simple,  easily  adopted,  and 
of  universal  concern.  He  believed  in  the  duties  of 
the  citizen ;  that  peril  to  the  republic  or  to  the  city  or 
to  civilization  is  less  from  the  intrusion  of  the  lower 
classes  into  public  affairs  than  from  the  withdrawal 
of  the  wealthy,  educated,  and  refined  class ;  less  from 
the  spoliations  of  the  proletariat  than  from  the  indif 
ference  of  the  wealthy  and  educated ;  and  he  regarded 


326  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

as  less  obnoxious  to  just  censure  him  who  takes  on 
the  duties  of  the  citizen  for  private  ends  than  one 
who  abstains  for  merely  personal  convenience. 

I  do  not  think  Mr.  Quincy  found  all  his  work  con 
genial.  That  such  a  man  —  a  man  who  understood 
and  enjoyed  the  best  of  the  world's  literature,  who 
loved  agriculture  and  the  society  of  refined  men  and 
women  —  should  busy  himself,  forsooth,  with  drains 
and  cesspools ;  with  back  yards  and  crowded  tene 
ments  ;  with  criminals,  and  the  poor,  and  the  squalid, 
and  the  sick,  —  this  certainly  could  not  have  been 
altogether  attractive  to  Mr.  Quincy,  a  born  aristocrat, 
who  could  run  his  lineage  back  to  the  rolls  of  Battle 
Abbey  without  encountering  the  gallows  or  losing 
himself  in  a  felon's  cell ;  a  man  who  made  no  profes 
sion  of  democracy ;  who  would  have  weighed  votes 
rather  than  have  counted  them ;  who  preferred  the 
judgments  of  experts  to  the  unformed  opinions  of  the 
crowd ;  who  sought  the  society  of  gentlemen  rather 
than  that  of  'longshoremen.  Nevertheless,  where  he 
was  called,  there  he  was  to  be  found  ! 

Though  not  a  believer  in  the  democracy  of  party,  it 
is  by  no  means  certain  that  he  would  have  approved 
of  recent  legislative  acts  which  seem  to  regard  the 
Great  and  General  Court,  rather  than  the  people,  as 
the  true  fountain  of  municipal  government  under  the 
constitution.  I  doubt  if  he  ever  contemplated,  as  a 
practical  relief  from  bad  government,  any  departure 
from  that  faith  on  which  our  political  system  rests  — 
faith  in  the  ability  and  the  desire  of  the  people  to 
govern  themselves  wisely,  honestly,  efficiently. 

I  think  Mr.  Quincy  saw,  what  all  of  us  must  see, 
that  the  people,  acting  without  some  unifying  princi 
ple  and  purpose,  are  as  the  sand  clouds  of  the  desert, 


JOSIAH  QUINCY  327 

driven  blindly  and  blinding ;  but  when,  as  in  the  late 
Civil  War,  they  are  animated  and  guided  by  benefi 
cent  purpose,  though  like  the  sea  sometimes  turbu 
lent,  they  are  wiser  even  in  their  anger  than  any  man 
however  wise  or  any  number  of  men  less  than  the 
whole. 

Nothing  concerns  the  people  so  much  as  govern 
ment.  It  is  the  test  of  public  morals,  as  the  regula 
tion  of  life  is  the  test  of  private  morals.  Deprecate  it 
as  we  may,  quarrel  with  it  if  we  will,  nevertheless  the 
world's  judgment  of  us  as  a  people  by  the  practical 
results  of  our  government,  whether  national,  state,  or 
municipal,  is  fair,  and  from  that  judgment  there  is  no 
appeal.  Mr.  Quincy,  therefore,  made  it  a  constant 
purpose  of  his  life  to  present  good  government  to  the 
people  as  the  highest  end  of  civil  society ;  to  endue 
them  with  a  unifying  sense  of  its  value,  and  to  inspire 
them  with  the  desire  and  determination  of  making 
themselves  fit  to  take  it  up,  carry  it  forward,  and 
transmit  it  to  their  successors.  He  would  spare  no 
expense  to  educate  them  ;  would  withhold  no  warning 
voice  calling  them  to  duty  or  impressing  them  with  the 
conviction  that  expedients  must  be  temporary  and  in 
the  long  run  unsuccessful,  and  that,  after  all  make 
shifts  have  failed,  none  but  the  people  will,  or  can, 
correct  what  is  wrong  or  secure  what  is  desirable  in 
their  government. 

Josiah  Quincy  was  not  of  the  people,  but  with  the 
people  and  for  the  people  —  always  !  If  he  never  in 
dulged  in  the  illusions  of  hope  respecting  the  perfecti 
bility  of  popular  government,  he  never  indulged  in  the 
illusions  of  despair.  His  participation  in  government, 
as  a  private  citizen  or  as  a  public  officer,  was  part  of 
his  religion  ;  not  a  new  religion,  but  older  than  Sinai, 


328  JOSIAH  QUINCY 

and  finding  one  sanction,  at  least,  in  the  necessities  of 
civilization.  It  needs  disciples  and,  it  may  be,  its 
martyrs. 

Thus  lived  and  died  and  was  buried  the  first  citizen 
of  no  mean  city.  Some  of  his  fellow-citizens  equaled 
him  in  genius,  some  in  learning,  and  some  in  fidelity 
to  duty ;  but  in  the  combination  of  these  qualities  he 
had  no  superior  and  few  equals.  Mr.  Quincy's  death, 
though  on  account  of  his  great  age  not  unexpected, 
produced  deep  feeling  among  all  classes  of  his  fellow- 
citizens,  and  was  followed  by  expressions  of  grief  from 
every  part  of  the  country,  and  even  from  foreign  lands. 
When  he  died  a  conspicuous  personality  was  with 
drawn  from  human  view ;  but  his  life  and  character 
and  influence  remain.  They  have  passed  into  the  life 
of  the  city  for  which  he  did  so  much ;  a  character 
which,  as  it  becomes  better  known,  may  we  not  hope, 
will  be  accepted  as  the  type  for  those  who  owe  it  to 
their  ancestry  to  be  great  in  affairs,  capable  of  self- 
government,  free,  patriotic,  and  beneficent  in  all 
public  relations.  In  honorable  place  among  those 
who  have  founded  cities,  reformed  institutions,  and 
served  God  by  unselfishly  serving  their  fellow-men,  is 
the  name  of  Josiah  Quincy,  "  the  Great  Mayor." 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

REMARKS  AT  THE  DINNER  OF  THE  ALUMNI  OF  DARTMOUTH 
COLLEGE,  JUNE  28,  1882 


Of  the  three  papers  on  Daniel  Webster  which  follow,  only  the 
last  was  ever  published  ;  the  other  two  were  printed  from  the 
reporter's  notes  in  a  few  copies  which  the  author  sent  to  personal 
friends.  Each  paper  contains  matter  not  found  in  the  others, 
but  also  something  common  to  all.  These  repetitions  were 
natural  under  the  circumstances,  and  the  editor  has  decided  not 
to  avoid  them. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 


You  have  alluded  to  the  fact,  Mr.  President,  that 
there  are  some  interesting  memorials  of  Daniel  Web 
ster  under  my  care  in  the  Boston  Public  Library. 
This  is  quite  true.  There  is  a  volume  made  up  in  part 
of  the  reporter's  shorthand  notes  of  the  second  speech 
in  Reply  to  Hayne,  with  additions  and  corrections  in 
the  hand  of  Mr.  Webster.  There  is  also  the  vase  pre 
sented  to  him  by  citizens  of  Boston,  in  recognition  of 
his  services,  especially  in  that  session  of  Congress 
made  memorable  by  the  great  Reply :  and  what  has  a 
double  interest  to  us  considering  the  subject  and  the 
author,  is  the  original  manuscript  of  Rufus  Choate's 
masterly  Discourse  on  Daniel  Webster,  delivered  here 
in  1853. 

These  memorials  are  greatly  valued  by  the  city  in 
which  Mr.  Webster  resided,  and  are  specially  interest 
ing  to  the  alumni  of  this  college,  upon  which  he  con 
ferred  distinction  as  a  graduate,  and  in  whose  service 
he  delivered  one  of  his  most  remarkable  legal  argu 
ments. 

We  have  reason  to  be  proud  of  Mr.  Webster's  rela 
tion  to  the  college ;  for  his  place  among  great  men  as 
well  as  among  the  greatest  of  orators  is  well  assured. 

After  all  fair  deductions  are  made,  his  oratory,  in 
its  mass  and  quality,  stands  upon  the  whole  as  the 
most  considerable  product  of  its  kind  in  the  age  in 


332  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

which  he  lived,  and  challenges  comparison  with  that 
of  any  age.  His  work  as  an  orator  is  still  vital.  It 
lives  and  speaks  not  merely  as  literature,  but  with  the 
original  vigor  and  freshness  of  the  spoken  word  in 
laws  enacted  through  his  powerful  advocacy  ;  in  the 
institutions  which  he  moulded  into  permanent  form ; 
and  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  which 
owes  much  to  his  eloquence  for  its  just  interpretation, 
and  its  very  life  to  that  sentiment  of  nationality  which 
he  awoke  in  the  hearts  of  the  people. 

Mr.  Webster,  in  learning  and  special  culture,  was 
surpassed  by  many ;  some  have  been  his  equals  in  log 
ical  power  ;  but  in  sustained,  rich,  and  effective  oratory, 
of  great  compass  and  variety,  he  is  without  peer  among 
his  countrymen,  and  is  to  be  counted  with  the  immor 
tal  few  gathered  from  all  the  ages.  As  a  public  man 
he  at  once  attracted  attention.  Lowndes  said  of  him, 
"  The  North  has  not  his  equal  nor  the  South  his  supe 
rior."  His  personal  history  became  well  known. 
Competent  critics  have  estimated  his  abilities  as  law 
yer,  statesman,  and  diplomatist ;  and  his  power  as  an 
orator  has  been  defined  with  a  precision  and  felicity 
which  leave  nothing  to  be  desired. 

Parker,  Brownson,  Hillard,  Everett,  Choate,  Curtis, 
Winthrop,  Evarts,  after  such  as  these  had  spoken 
what  remained  to  be  said  ?  So  we  thought  yesterday, 
sir.  [Senator  Bayard.]  To-day  we  learn  once 
more  that  to  genius  old  themes  are  always  new.  But 
he  who  adds  a  leaf  to  the  chaplet  of  Webster  weaves 
laurels  for  his  own  brow. 

How  clearly  has  the  orator  of  the  day  seen,  and  how 
clearly  has  he  made  us  to  see,  that  the  words  of  the 
dead  statesman  are  still  vital,  —  still  the  best  thought 
and  the  best  word ;  and  that  he  who  would  equip  him- 


WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR  333 

self  for  the  coming  contest  must  draw  his  weapons 
from  the  armory  of  Webster.     They  are  all  there  : 

"  Illic  arma  ;  currus  illic  ;  illic  arcus  Ulyssis ! 
Sed  ubi  Ulysses  ?  " 

I  shall  not  dwell  on  the  characteristics  of  his  ora 
tory  —  its  swift  marshaling  of  forces,  its  steadiness 
along  the  line,  its  honest  Saxon  cheer  of  onset,  its 
vigor  of  attack  and  overwhelming  weight  of  column, 
its  knightliness  of  battle,  its  clemency  in  victory,  its 
reserves  never  in  action  —  all  this  is  familiar. 

The  only  view  of  Mr.  Webster  as  an  orator  which 
has  not  lost  something  of  its  freshness  from  frequency 
of  presentation,  and  which  if  adequately  presented 
would  assist  in  determining  his  place  among  the  great 
masters  of  spoken  eloquence,  is  that  which  takes  in  at 
a  single  glance  the  combination  in  his  oratory  of  im 
mediate  effectiveness,  breadth,  and  the  permanent 
value  of  what  survives  as  literature.  Others  have 
moved  audiences  as  powerfully.  Some  have  spoken 
words  equally  rich  as  literature ;  and  the  speech  of  a 
few  has  passed  into  national  life.  Mr.  Webster's  elo 
quence  was  masterly  in  all  these  particulars  ;  and  in 
this  combination  of  great  qualities  was  unequaled. 

Any  critical  estimate  of  Mr.  Webster's  productions 
must  fairly  include  some  reference  to  the  age  and 
country  in  which  he  lived,  the  education  within  his 
reach,  and  the  circumstances  which  environed  him. 

He  has  been  compared  with  the  great  orator  of  an 
tiquity.  But  had  Webster  been  born  in  an  age  and 
country  in  which  life  itself  was  a  liberal  education ; 
in  a  country  where  every  object  on  which  the  eye  rested 
was  a  work  of  art  or  a  source  of  inspiration  ;  in  an  age 
when  language  had  reached  perfection  as  an  instrument 
of  expression  ;  and  especially  had  he  made  oratory  the 


334  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

exclusive  purpose  of  his  life,  prosecuted  under  famous 
masters  of  the  art,  —  such  a  comparison  would  be 
fairer. 

He  has  been  compared  with  the  great  orators  of 
England  —  with  Chatham,  Fox,  and  Burke  —  all  men 
of  genius  thoroughly  equipped  for  oratory  by  educa 
tion  and  training,  and  mainly  indebted  to  this  for  any 
special  superiority  to  Mr.  Webster.  Equal  to  any 
one  of  these  in  intellectual  force,  as  richly  endowed 
as  any  of  them  with  individualized  gifts  of  eloquence, 
as  an  orator  he  wrought  results,  immediate  and  perma 
nent,  which  compare  favorably  with  those  produced 
by  every  one  of  these  orators. 

Erskine  said  that  the  speeches  of  Burke,  which  all 
the  world  read  with  wonder  and  delight  in  the  morn 
ing,  had  cleared  the  benches  of  the  Commons  the 
night  before  ;  and  I  have  heard  it  said  of  Mr.  Web 
ster,  that  he  lacked  that  power  of  popular  oratory 
which  takes  audiences  off  their  feet ;  and  that  those 
who,  drawn  by  his  immense  reputation,  went  to  hear 
him,  came  away  disappointed.  He  was  not  a  popu 
lar  orator  after  the  fashion  of  Henry  Clay.  Doubt 
less  he  lacked  those  peculiar  graces  of  speech  and 
manner  which  made  the  commonest  efforts  of  Everett 
and  Choate  so  attractive. 

Few  persons  now  living  have  heard  Webster  at  his 
best,  or  before  he  had  reached  that  time  of  life  which 
marks  decline  in  certain  powers  of  the  popular  orator. 
The  tradition  of  those  who  heard  him  when  he  was  a 
young  man  following  the  circuit  of  the  New  Hamp 
shire  courts,  and  the  testimony  of  the  few  survivors  of 
those  audiences  which  hung  on  his  lips  at  Plymouth 
Rock  and  Bunker  Hill,  is  that  he  never  lapsed  into 
dulness,  but  that  his  eloquence  was  always  rich,  flow- 


WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR  335 

ing,  and  captivating.  What  that  eloquence  was  in 
his  prime,  those  of  us  can  understand  who  heard  him 
say,  in  1843,  at  Bunker  Hill:  "It  is  not  from  my 
lips,  it  is  not  from  any  human  lips,  that  that  strain  of 
eloquence  is  this  day  to  flow,  most  competent  to  move 
and  excite  the  vast  multitudes  around.  The  power 
ful  speaker  stands  motionless  before  us  !  " 

More  fortunate  still  were  those  Sons  of  New  Hamp 
shire  who  heard  him,  an  old  man,  say  at  Boston  :  "  I 
see  that  the  emperor  of  Russia  demands  of  Turkey 
that  the  noble  Kossuth  and  his  companions  shall  be 
given  up  to  be  dealt  with  at  pleasure.  And  I  see 
that  this  demand  is  in  derision  of  the  law  of  nations. 
Gentlemen,  there  is  something  on  earth  greater  than 
arbitrary  and  despotic  power.  The  lightning  has  its 
power,  and  the  whirlwind  has  its  power,  and  the  earth 
quake  has  its  power ;  but  there  is  something  among 
men  more  capable  of  shaking  despotic  thrones  than 
lightning,  whirlwind,  and  earthquake ;  that  is,  the 
excited  and  aroused  indignation  of  the  \vhole  civilized 
world !  "  The  orator  was  transfigured  by  his  elo 
quence.  His  words  became  the  elemental  forces  they 
represent,  and  all  that  vast  audience  sat  in  awed  ex 
pectancy  of  some  audible  expression  of  the  excited 
and  aroused  indignation  of  the  whole  civilized  world  ! 

Oratory  fulfills  its  functions  when  its  immediate 
purposes  are  accomplished.  It  aims  to  convince  and 
persuade.  That  done,  its  work  is  done.  But  elo 
quence  sometimes  passes  into  household  words  or 
survives  as  literature.  Sometimes,  though  rarely,  it 
becomes  embodied  in  deeds  which  endure  forever. 
Mr.  Webster  possessed  these  varied  powers  of  elo 
quence  in  a  combination  not  often  found,  and  in  a  de 
gree  which  leaves  him  without  a  peer.  In  the  forty 


336  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

years  of  his  public  life,  more  uniformly  than  any  other 
orator  he  gained  his  cause ;  and  his  causes  were  large, 
affecting  laws,  policy,  institutions,  government,  and 
.  the  permanent  sentiments  of  an  entire  people.  But 
apart  from  its  immediate  effects  his  eloquence  lives 
imperishably  in  the  results  achieved  by  it,  as  well  as 
in  the  body  of  literature  he  created. 

The  verity  and  significance  of  these  statements  ap 
pear,  when  we  look  at  the  work  of  some  accounted  the 
world's  most  famous  orators,  with  whom  Mr.  Webster 
is  often  mentioned. 

The  great  Athenian  orator  pronounced  the  most 
elaborate  compositions  which  ever  fell  from  human 
lips.  As  such  they  defy  all  comparison.  But  what 
was  their  permanent  or  even  their  immediate  effec 
tiveness?  They  precipitated  the  crushing  power  of 
Philip  on  the  orator's  country  which  he  lacked  the 
courage  to  defend,  and  he  died  by  suicidal  hands 
amid  ruins  which  his  eloquence  could  neither  avert 
nor  postpone. 

The  history  of  Cicero  as  an  orator  is  still  more  de 
plorable.  If  we  may  trust  Mommsen,  the  latest  and 
best  critic  of  Roman  history,  the  genius  of  that  great 
orator  displayed  itself  without  sincerity  in  costly  rhet 
oric,  on  affairs  having  no  sequence  of  value  to  Rome. 

Chatham  is  a  great  name,  and  he  was  one  of  the 
greatest  orators,  if  we  may  accept  his  traditionary 
fame.  But  what  did  his  eloquence  accomplish  ?  The 
great  commoner,  from  high  place  in  government  and 
in  the  possession  of  vast  resources  and  almost  unlim 
ited  power,  wrought  mightily  for  the  glory  of  Eng 
land.  His  eloquence  contributed  to  the  repeal  of  the 
Stamp  Act,  but  was  powerless  to  change  the  policy  of 
the  government. 


WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR  337 

Great  words  were  those  —  "I  rejoice  that  America 
has  resisted."  They  electrify  us  to-day,  as  they  echo 
from  the  walls  of  St.  Stephen ;  but  they  accomplished 
nothing,  they  prevented  nothing.  With  vehement, 
splendid  declamation  he  inveighed  against  the  use  of 
Indian  auxiliaries  in  Burgoyne's  army  ;  —  only  to  de 
nounce,  not  to  prevent;  only  to  call  out  the  dama 
ging  reply  that  he  denounced  a  policy  inaugurated  by 
himself.  His  mighty  eloquence  was  unprevailing  elo 
quence.  Neither  alone  nor  with  the  auxiliar  oratory 
of  his  great  allies  could  he  stay  the  madness  of  the 
king.  Their  eloquence  availed  nothing  then ;  it  has 
availed  nothing  since  !  Burke's  genius  was  amazing, 
but  it  was  not  that  of  an  orator. 

Lord  Brougham  said  that  Charles  James  Fox  was 
one  of  "  the  greatest  statesmen,  and  if  not  the  greatest 
orator,  certainly  the  most  accomplished  debater  that 
ever  appeared  upon  the  theatre  of  human  affairs  in  any 
age  of  the  world ;  "  and  another,  scarcely  less  compe 
tent  as  a  critic,  has  added :  "  He  has  left  no  memorial 
of  any  good  he  wrought  by  his  eloquence,  his  Libel 
Bill  being  the  only  good  law  he  ever  introduced." 

Let  me  not  be  misunderstood.  I  am  not  unmind 
ful  of  the  inadequacy  of  this  test.  I  know  that  the 
words  of  famous  orators  are  privileged  with  immor 
tality.  Like  the  songs  of  great  poets,  like  heroic 
deeds  on  lost  fields,  like  the  Parthenon  in  ruins, 
they  are  the  imperishable  treasure  of  the  race.  But 
if  just  fame  is  theirs  without  permanent  success,  what 
measure  of  fame  is  his  who  achieved  the  success  he 
merited  I  Happily  for  the  people,  Mr.  Webster  lived 
in  times  which  closed  to  him  those  subjects  which  so 
largely  formed  the  themes  of  famous  orators.  There 
was  no  venal  government  to  denounce,  no  tyrant  to 


338  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

objurgate,  no  people  to  excite  to  deeds  of  valor. 
Had  his  prime  corresponded  with  our  Revolutionary 
struggle,  what  invective  —  surpassing  that  of  Adams 
airtl  Otis  —  would  he  have  hurled  against  the  royal 
tyrant ;  and  who  can  doubt  that  his  battle  cry  in  the 
hour  of  disaster  would  have  rung  like  that  heard  in 
Roncesvalles  ! 

On  this  point  we  are  not  left  to  conjecture.  His 
supposititious  speech  of  John  Adams  on  the  Resolu 
tion  for  Independence  —  as  nearly  impromptu  as  such 
things  ever  are  —  attests  the  vigor  of  his  patriotic  im 
agination  as  well  as  the  promptitude  of  its  resources. 

But  he  lived  in  peaceful  times.  And  when  his 
day  offered  no  fit  occasion  for  the  spirit  that  burned 
within  him,  he  made  at  Plymouth  Rock  and  at  Bun 
ker  Hill  occasions  for  its  utterance.  When  common 
forms  of  oratory  were  found  inadequate  to  arouse  and 
instruct  patriotic  national  sentiment,  he  formed  and 
carried  to  its  highest  development  a  new  kind  of  pop 
ular  oratory  which  in  his  mouth  became  a  trum 
pet  that  reached  the  ear  of  twenty  millions  of  people. 

Observe  some  few  of  the  occasions  made  memora 
ble  by  Mr.  Webster's  eloquence,  and  some  examples 
of  its  transforming  power.  Neither  Plymouth  Rock 
nor  Bunker  Hill ;  neither  the  commerce  of  our  inland 
seas  or  navigable  rivers  ;  neither  the  constitution  un 
der  which  we  live,  nor  those  institutions  of  learning 
and  charity  which  serve  to  make  life  a  beneficent  gift 
of  God,  are  what  they  would  have  been  had  Webster 
never  lived  and  spoken.  Lived  and  spoken  ;  for  it 
was  by  eloquence  that  Mr.  Webster  accomplished 
what  neither  learning  nor  logic  could  effect.  Web 
ster's  eloquence  overthrew  the  masterly  judgment 
of  the  Superior  Court  of  New  Hampshire  before  the 


WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR  339 

Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  in  the  Dartmouth 
College  case,  —  overthrew  it  instantly  and  forever. 
This  more  than  any  other  of  his  arguments  throbbed 
with  his  own  heart-beats.  It  reached  the  hearts  and 
flooded  the  eyes  of  venerable  magistrates.  Pinkney, 
who  questioned  Webster's  law  in  the  case,  thought 
that  the  court  was  carried  less  by  sound  argument 
than  by  force  of  oratory.  If  so,  the  fact  adds  testi 
mony  to  the  imperial  power  of  Webster's  eloquence 
—  powerful  even  to  the  saving  of  life  —  thy  life,  O 
mother  beloved,  now  immortal ! 

This  was  not  the  eloquence  of  an  hour.  No.  We 
hear  it  to-day,  in  this  great  presence,  happy  in  the 
assured  prosperity  of  her  we  love  —  vital  as  on  that 
first  day  ;  and  not  we  only,  but  every  college  and  lit 
erary  institution  in  the  country  hears  it,  and  will  hear 
it  as  long  as  colleges  and  literary  institutions  exist. 
That  was  eloquence  indeed  ;  argument  made  constitu 
tion  ;  godlike  eloquence  which  spake  and  it  was  done. 

In  1820,  Mr.  Webster  brought  into  relief,  clear  as 
never  before,  the  story  of  the  Pilgrims.  The  de 
scendants  of  those  first  comers  had  been  wont,  at  stated 
times,  to  gather  at  the  Landing,  and  there  recount 
with  filial  piety  the  story  of  the  sufferings,  the  con 
stancy,  and  the  faith  of  those  whose  plantation  had 
become  a  state.  Webster  found  there  the  Pilgrims' 
rock  ;  he  made  it  the  shrine  of  a  nation  !  On  that  mem 
orable  twenty-second  of  December,  Webster's  words 
of  faith,  liberty,  law,  and  religion  became  audible  to 
twenty  millions  of  people ;  and  they  will  be  heard  as 
long  as  the  ocean's  voice  resounds  along  that  shore. 
This  was  the  first  of  that  remarkable  series  of  pat 
riotic  orations  addressed  to  local  audiences,  but  so 
spoken  that  a  nation  heard. 


340  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

Mr.  Webster  invaded  all  provinces  of  oratory,  and 
from  all  returned  victorious.  If  calm,  unimpassioned 
reasoning,  with  no  highly  raised  passages,  powerfully 
addressed  to  the  understanding,  has  a  place  in  oratory, 
then  the  argument  of  Daniel  Webster,  which  reversed 
the  judgments  of  the  illustrious  judicial  tribunals  of 
New  York,  and  pronounced  the  commerce  of  naviga 
ble  streams  and  inland  seas  a  unit,  subject  to  the  ex 
clusive  control  of  the  general  government,  is  entitled 
to  high  rank.  It  overthrew  the  laws  of  a  great  State, 
which  for  thirty  years  had  stood  upon  the  statute 
book,  affirmed  by  judges  as  eminent  as  any  in  the 
country.  A  gloss  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  by  Daniel  Webster  became  an  integral  part 
thereof,  affecting  vast  interests,  and  for  time  mea 
sured  only  by  the  duration  of  the  government.  Of 
what  other  orator  can  such  words  be  spoken  ;  and 
what  place  among  orators  is  his  of  whom  they  can  be 
justly  said? 

At  Bunker  Hill,  in  1825,  Mr.  Webster  took  up  the 
great  work  of  his  life  —  to  arouse  and  nationalize  the 
patriotic  sentiment  of  the  country.  For  this  work  he 
was  raised  up ;  to  this  he  gave  his  life ;  from  his 
boyhood  it  haunted  him  like  a  passion.  He  pursued 
it  with  a  zeal  and  constancy  not  always  understood 
even  by  his  friends.  Foreigners  wonder  at  our  esti 
mate  of  Webster.  What  marvel  when  we  ourselves 
have  so  lately,  and  at  so  great  cost,  through  fire  and 
blood,  come  to  understand  the  mystery  of  that  saving 
faith  of  which  he  was  the  great  proclaimer  and  only 
prophet. 

On  that  memorable  occasion  he  announced  his 
creed  :  "  Our  country,  our  whole  country,  and  nothing 
but  our  country."  These  words  were  not  addressed 


WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR  341 

to  the  descendants  of  the  few  New  England  troops, 
who  on  the  heights  of  Bunker  Hill  and  on  its  declivi 
ties  joined  unequal  battle  with  the  veteran  soldiers  of 
England.  No.  These  words  —  such  words  as  no 
other  man  had  ever  spoken  —  were  heard  by  thou 
sands  to  whom  Bunker  Hill  was  unknown  in  its  great 
lesson  of  patriotism.  They  became  household  words 
beyond  the  Mississippi  and  by  the  shores  of  the 
Great  Lakes.  They  were  caught  up  and  recited  in 
every  schoolhouse  in  the  land  ;  and  at  the  country's 
call  were  repeated  in  deeds  of  immortal  valor  on  a 
hundred  fields ! 

These  two  orations  served  to  make  possible  a 
nationality  springing  from  aroused  and  enlightened 
public  sentiment.  The  Great  Reply,  with  a  sweep  of 
logic  as  unerring  as  the  planetary  movements,  and 
with  an  eloquence  as  thorough-bred  as  the  muse  of 
Milton,  made  nationality  a  fact  which  four  years  of 
civil  war  could  not  obliterate.  It  was  his  "  omnific 
word  "  heard 

"  Far  into  chaos  " 

which  commanded  the  pillars  of  the  Constitution  to 
stand.  These  words,  so  spoken,  made  the  day  and 
the  speaker  immortal.  Nothing  can  touch  him ! 

In  estimating  Mr.  Webster's  rank  as  an  orator  we 
should  not  forget  —  for  it  is  his  distinction  —  that 
nearly  all  the  great  triumphs  with  which  his  name  is 
associated  were  his  personal  triumphs.  The  abolition 
of  the  slave  trade  and  of  slavery,  the  Reform  Bill, 
the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws,  and  other  similar  mod 
ern  reforms  have  been  effected  by  various  influences, 
such  as  the  press,  groups  of  orators  and  writers, 
social  and  political  organizations  —  sometimes  with 
the  whole  civilized  world  in  the  lists  —  all  striving  to 


342  WEBSTER  AS  AN  ORATOR 

the  same  end.  But  in  Webster's  victories  he  stands 
for  all  these  forces,  and  he  stands  alone. 

"  Alone  his  task  was  wrought, 
Alone  his  battle  fought." 

He  led  no  party.  Neither  the  power  of  the  govern 
ment  nor  the  prestige  of  administration  was  with  him  ; 
nothing  but  his  cause  and  the  might  of  his  imperial 
eloquence.  Forty  years  of  victorious  eloquence,  with 
never  a  defeat ;  for  the  country  always,  and  never  for 
self ;  conquests  for  the  country,  and  still  held  by  the 
country  —  all  this  is  historical. 

Mr.  Webster  in  his  oratory  has  delineated  the 
characters  of  some  of  the  chief  actors  in  the  most 
significant  events  in  our  history.  Adams,  Jefferson, 
Hamilton,  Madison,  Jay  —  what  portraits  are  these ! 
And  that  great  central  figure  !  Who  had  conceived 
the  character  of  Washington  in  its  just  proportion,  or 
what  creative  hand  in  art  had  made  him,  in  form  and 
feature,  to  live  on  the  canvas,  as  his  character  appears 
in  the  discriminating  eloquence  of  Webster  ? 

Friends,  you  who  love  learning  and  its  institutions ; 
you  who  mark  with  just  pride  that  great  volume  of 
commerce  which  pours  its  lifeblood,  unchecked,  along 
our  great  rivers  and  inland  seas ;  you  who  believe  in 
that 

"  *  .  .  true  liberty 

.  .  .  which  always  with  right  reason  dwells, 
.  .  .  and  from  her  hath  no  dividual  being ;  " 

you  who  believe  in  the  stability,  permanence,  and 
value  of  the  Constitution  of  the  country,  resting  on 
enlightened,  patriotic  sentiment,  name  him  who,  of 
that  crown  reserved  for  the  world's  most  prevailing 
orator,  is  worthiest  in  your  suffrages. 


KEMAKKS  AT  THE  DINNER  OF  THE 

ALUMNI  OF  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE 

AT  CONCORD,  N.  H.,  JUNE  17,  1886 
ON  THE 

OCCASION  OF  THE  DEDICATION  OF  A  STATUE 
OF  DANIEL  WEBSTER 


REMARKS 

ON  THE  OCCASION  OF  THE   DEDICATION  OF  A 
STATUE  OF  WEBSTER  AT  CONCORD,  N.  H. 


THE  Seventeenth  of  June,  already  crowded  with 
histories,  gains  one  more  title  to  respect  by  the  events 
of  this  day  now  drawing  to  a  close.  Annually  with 
the  rising  of  its  sun  immortal  memories  awake :  mem- 

O 

ories  of  1775,  when  in  their  "  agony  of  glory "  the 
yeomanry  of  New  England  twice  repulsed  the  veteran 
troops  of  Great  Britain  on  Bunker  Hill,  and  by  a 
defeat  which  was  victory  made  inevitable  an  inde 
pendent  empire ;  memories  of  the  same  heights  when 
Lafayette,  in  1825,  surrounded  by  surviving  heroes 
of  the  Revolution,  laid  the  corner-stone  of  a  super 
structure  which  began  an  era  of  monumental  art  in 
America,  and  Daniel  Webster  added  lustre  to  the 
commemorative  eloquence  inaugurated  by  him  at 
Plymouth  Rock. 

Nor  do  the  transactions  in  which  we  have  this  day 
participated  lack  happy  associations  with  those  his 
toric  events  ;  for  here,  at  the  capital,  in  the  presence 
of  sons  whose  sires  were  at  Bunker  Hill  in  1775,  and 
who  were  themselves  by  the  side  of  the  Great  Orator 
on  the  same  spot  fifty  years  later,  his  townsman,  the 
orator  of  the  day,  in  words  worthy  of  the  occasion, 
has  made  memorable  the  day  which  witnesses  the 
unveiling  of  the  first  commemorative  statue,  and  that 
of  her  greatest  son,  ever  set  up  on  New  Hampshire 


346       DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE 

soil.  The  day  will  stand  apart  by  itself ;  for  though 
other  notable  days  will  come,  on  precisely  such  a  day 
as  this  no  second  morn  will  ever  rise. 

To-day  a  duty  has  been  performed.  In  the  pre 
sence  of  the  highest  authorities  of  the  State,  with  civic 
procession  and  military  display,  the  reproach  of  many 
has  been  taken  away  by  the  vicarious  munificence  of 
one. 

Although  the  erection  of  a  statue  of  Daniel  Web 
ster  in  this  city  is  of  peculiar  interest  to  the  people  of 
New  Hampshire,  yet  from  other  sections  of  the  coun 
try  have  come  those  who  desire  to  honor  the  memory 
of  him  who  knew  no  section,  —  nothing  less  than  the 
whole  country ;  —  him  who  expounded  and  defended 
its  Constitution  ;  who  assisted  in  making  and  inter 
preting  its  laws ;  who  conducted  its  diplomacy  at 
a  critical  period,  and  always  so  spoke  as  to  com 
mand  the  ear  of  his  countrymen  —  those  who  followed 
the  plow,  or  turned  the  spindle,  or  went  down  to  the 
sea  in  ships,  or  studied  the  eloquence  of  the  best 
ages. 

The  orator  of  the  day  has  sketched  the  life,  char 
acter,  and  services  of  Daniel  Webster.  He  has  vin 
dicated  him  whose  political  opinions  divided  parties, 
and  whose  principles  and  everything  save  his  patriot 
ism  and  his  ability  had  been  called  in  question.  But 
were  it  otherwise,  we  have  come  hither  with  no  such 
purpose  ;  nor  do  we  wish  to  reconsider  our  estimate 
of  him.  To  us  he  stands  high,  clear,  and  unassailable 
in  his  great  offices,  and  unapproachable  in  the  great 
ness  of  his  public  services.  Let  those  who  will,  accuse 
us  of  undue  devotion  to  his  memory.  We  make  no 
reply, 

"  Namque  erit  ille  nobis  semper  deus." 


DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE      347 

The  dedication  of  the  statue  of  Daniel  Webster  is 
completed ;  but  we,  sons  of  Dartmouth,  and  most  of 
us  sons  of  New  Hampshire,  have  come  together  by 
ourselves  that  we  may  indulge  sentiments  suggested 
by  our  relations  to  the  State  and  to  the  college,  and 
through  these  to  Mr.  Webster.  For  whatever  he  may 
be  to  others,  to  us  he  is  something  more  and  some 
thing  different.  Others  speak  of  him  as  the  wise 
statesman  and  consummate  orator;  but  in  this  gather 
ing  we  think  of  him  as  a  son  of  New  Hampshire  and 
as  our  brother  of  Dartmouth  College.  And  here,  in 
the  reflection  of  his  greatness,  and  as  heirs  of  his 
affection  for  the  State  of  his  birth  and  for  the  college 
where  he  was  educated,  we  go  from  the  graves  of  our 
ancestors  to  the  neighboring  graves  of  his  ancestors, 
and  tenderly  brushing  the  moss  and  lichens  from  both, 
thank  God  we  are  sons  of  New  Hampshire.  Once 
more,  as  when  at  Hanover,  we  sit  in  the  seats  where  he 
sat,  or  roam  the  woods  where  he  roamed,  or  ply  our 
boats  on  the  bosom  of  the  Connecticut  where  he  plied 
his  boat,  and  again  thank  God  that  we  are  also  sons 
of  Dartmouth. 

He  loved  the  place  of  his  birth  and  the  place 
where  he  was  educated.  We  love  the  same  places; 
and  it  may  be  that  none  can  enter  the  circle  of  those 
affections  save  by  the  unpurchasable  right  of  inherit 
ance.  Be  it  so.  We  to-day  are  once  more  children 
by  the  graves  of  our  forefathers,  and  youth  in  the 
places  sacred  to  learning;  and  these  shall  be  the 
themes  of  our  discourse. 

But l  I  am  sure,  Mr.  President,  that  the  alumni  of 
Dartmouth  College  desire,  first  of  all,  to  express  to 

1  All  which  precedes  this  point  was  omitted  in  the  delivery  of  the 
Remarks. 


348       DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE 

his  Excellency  the  Governor  and  to  the  honorable 
Council  of  the  State  of  New  Hampshire  their  grateful 
sense  of  the  privilege  of  participating  in  the  dedica 
tion  of  a  statue  of  Daniel  Webster  on  his  native  soil ; 
and  to  add  that  they  regard  the  selection  of  the  presi 
dent  of  the  college  for  the  part  in  these  interesting 
ceremonies,  which  he  has  performed  with  distinguished 
success,  as  a  manifestation  of  good-will  by  the  State  to 
the  college,  which  is  appreciated  by  all  its  friends. 

The  relations  of  the  college  to  the  State  are  pecu 
liar.  As  a  corporation  it  is  older  than  the  State ;  for 
the  charter  of  the  college,  which  is  still  the  basis  and 
measure  of  its  rights,  and  irrevocable  except  for  cause, 
came  from  George  the  Third,  when  New  Hampshire 
was  a  royal  province,  without  charter,  and  governed 
under  the  king's  commission,  which  was  revocable  at 
his  pleasure. 

To-day  we  witness  an  extraordinary  proceeding. 
The  State  accepts  as  a  gift  from  an  estimable  and 
loyal  citizen,  and  with  the  according  voices  of  thou 
sands  of  other  citizens,  also  loyal,  sets  up  in  a  con 
spicuous  place,  before  the  most  august  symbol  of  its 
authority,  a  statue  of  Daniel  Webster,  —  to  whom 
more  than  to  any  other  man  is  due  that  construction 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  which  over 
threw  a  legislative  act  of  the  sovereign  State  of  New 
Hampshire,  reversed  the  solemn  decision  of  its  highest 
judicial  tribunal,  and  erected  within  its  jurisdiction 
an  imperium  in  imperio  which  will  endure  as  long  as 
the  Constitution  endures. 

And  it  is  well.  For  the  State  and  the  college  have 
been  mutually  helpful.  The  State  has  been  the  bene 
factor  of  the  college  ;  and  if  not  munificent  when 
compared  with  more  opulent  States,  yet  liberal  in  a 


DEDICATION  OF   WEBSTER  STATUE       349 

degree  honorable  to  a  government  which  derived  its 
revenues  from  a  people  without  profitable  industries 
until  the  stimulus  of  foreign  capital  had  aroused  the 
slumbering  giant  of  the  Merrimac ;  and  whose  agri 
cultural  interests  rapidly  declined  when  canals  and 
railroads  opened  the  markets  of  the  East  to  the  disas 
trous  competition  of  the  more  fertile  West. 

But  now  a  new  era  has  begun.  Necessity  has  de 
veloped  a  new  industry.  Thrift  and  the  near  approach 
of  hunger  have  stimulated  the  conversion  of  pure  air 
and  mountain  scenery  into  merchantable  commodities, 
happily  indispensable  to  the  sweltering  corn-growers 
and  pork-packers  of  the  malarial  prairies.  A  retri 
butive  corner  has  been  made,  —  reasonably  perma 
nent,  if  we  may  rely  upon  the  providentially  slow 
growth  of  mountains,  and  remunerative,  we  hope, 
"  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice." 

These  inspiring  facts  open  a  vista.  In  the  distance 
the  college  is  seen  reveling  in  opulence  ! 

If  the  State  has  been  liberal  according  to  her  means, 
the  college  has  recognized  her  reciprocal  obligations, 
and  met  them  with  promptitude  and  efficiency.  Erase 
from  the  State's  roll  of  honor,  of  which  she  is  justly 
proud,  the  names  of  those  sons  of  Dartmouth  who 
have  gained  distinction  in  science,  in  jurisprudence, 
and  in  public  affairs,  and  the  place  of  New  Hamp 
shire  would  be  less  conspicuous  than  it  now  is  among 
her  sister  States.  Give  back  to  unlettered  drudgery 
those  undistinguished  sons  of  Dartmouth,  who,  with 
minds  quickened  by  liberal  studies,  have  followed 
their  professions  on  hillsides  or  in  sequestered  valleys, 
—  narrow  but  necessary  fields  of  labor,  —  and  there 
would  be  a  manifest  decline  of  intelligence,  good  judg 
ment,  and  moral  sense  in  those  communities. 


350       DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE 

I  do  not  propose  to  dwell  on  those  special  relations 
of  Daniel  Webster  to  the  college,  to  which  I  have 
adverted ;  but  in  the  general  relations  of  debt  and 
credit  between  the  college  and  the  people  of  the  State 
Daniel  Webster  was  included.  Born  remote  from 
the  centres  of  civilization  and  culture,  and  without 
the  means  of  access  to  them,  there  was  danger,  and 
in  his  case,  from  temperament,  special  danger,  lest  he 
would  grow  up  in  obscurity  and  add  one  more  to  the 
large  number  of  richly  endowed  but  imperfectly  edu 
cated  men  of  which  New  Hampshire  was  full,  who 
gave  to  the  wilderness  powers  which  might  have  made 
them  conspicuous  on  any  theatre  of  action.  More 
than  most  men  of  anything  like  his  intellectual  force, 
Daniel  Webster  needed  the  stimulus  of  education  and 
the  prospect  of  a  career.  This  needed  help  was  just 
what  the  college  gave.  She  opened  the  mine,  she 
laid  bare  the  ore,  —  abundant,  massive,  pure,  —  and 
set  it  free,  as  currency  bearing  the  royal  stamp  of 
genius,  to  enrich  the  wisdom  of  the  people  and  the 
English  speech  of  the  world.  This  was  his  chief  debt 
to  the  college. 

Apart  from  Webster's  natural  endowments  no  one 
was  more  "  heinously  unprovided,"  as  he  said,  with 
education  or  pecuniary  means,  "  to  break  into  col 
lege."  Luckily  it  was  not  far  to  seek ;  otherwise  he 
might  never  have  found  it.  But  he  sought  it  and 
entered.  When  there,  unlike  Bacon  and  Milton  at 
English  Cambridge,  he  made  no  complaint  of  the 
education  it  afforded.  It  was  the  best  he  was  pre 
pared  to  receive,  and  both  parties  were  satisfied.  She 
gave  him  all  she  had  to  give,  and  with  all  her  require 
ments  he  cheerfully  complied.  Both  were  young  to 
gether  ;  both  were  poor  ;  and  both  struggling  to  gain 


DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE       351 

a  foothold  on  bare  creation.  It  is  idle,  but  we  may 
guess,  if  we  will,  how  much  and  in  what  respects 
Webster  might  have  been  greater  had  he,  after  the 
preparatory  training  of  such  schools  as  Eton  or 
Winchester,  been  educated  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge, 
with  their  splendid  libraries,  their  exact  scholarship, 
their  impressive  antiquity,  and  the  stimulating  influ 
ence  of  the  long  lines  of  their  illustrious  graduates. 

Such  were  the  relations  to  the  college  of  Daniel 
Webster  as  an  undergraduate.  He  was  greatly  in  her 
debt.  But  there  came  a  time  when  all  this  was 
changed,  —  in  an  hour  when  her  need  was  sore  and 
pressing  and  his  help  was  seasonable  and  adequate ; 
an  hour  when  he  paid  the  unforgotten  debt  of  his 
youth  ;  when  he  secured  immortality  for  her,  and  laid 
the  foundations  of  his  own. 

But,  gentlemen,  I  must  not  forget,  even  in  this  pre 
sence,  that  there  are  other  claims  than  ours  to  Daniel 
Webster.  He  was  a  son  of  New  Hampshire  and  he 
was  the  foremost  man  of  his  country.  Of  all  the  great 
Americans  of  this  century,  perhaps  of  any  century,  he 
was  the  most  genuinely  and  thoroughly  American  ;  of 
all,  most  undoubtedly  a  product  of  our  soil,  climate, 
institutions,  and  modes  of  life.  He  owed  much  to  the 
State  of  his  birth  ;  but  he  owed  nothing  to  any  other 
State.  He  owed  much  to  his  New  Hampshire  ancestors ; 
but  to  them,  and  to  them  alone,  he  was  indebted  for 
his  rich  inheritance.  In  him  there  was  no  intermixture 
of  nationalities,  no  crossing  of  plebeian  with  patrician 
blood.  His  pedigree  was  of  New  Hampshire  and  as 
pure  as  the  air  he  breathed.  Unlike  Morris,  Gallatin, 
and  Hamilton,  he  was  born  on  our  soil.  His  forefathers 
were  also  born  on  it,  unlike  the  ancestors  of  some  of 
those  who  in  Revolutionary  days  rendered  illustrious 


352       DEDICATION  OF   WEBSTER  STATUE 

services  to  the  country.  For  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
they  had  lived  in  New  Hampshire.  Into  them  had 
entered  the  cold  blasts  from  the  polar  circle  and  the 
fierce  heats  which  seemed  to  have  strayed  from  the 
tropics.  Every  drop  of  their  blood,  every  fibre  of  their 
flesh,  every  bone  and  sinew,  had  become  Americanized. 
For  five  generations,  not  from  the  safe  retreats  of  gar 
risoned  settlements,  but  on  the  skirmish  line  of  civili 
zation,  they  had  waged  strenuous  war  with  barbarism 
and  changed  the  wilderness  into  habitable  abodes  of 
men. 

To  all  these  transforming  influences  Daniel  Web 
ster  was  fortunately  heir.  We  of  New  Hampshire 
think  that  he  was  also  fortunate  in  the  place  of  his 
birth.  The  glory  of  a  state,  sir,  is  in  its  men,  —  not 
in  its  broad  acres  ;  not  in  its  fertile  soil ;  not  in  its 
rich  mines  ;  but  in  its  men.  That  is  a  great  state 
which  produces  great  men  ;  and  virile  were  the  loins 
that  begat  the  Websters,  the  Starks,  the  Langdons, 
the  Bartletts,  the  Smiths,  the  Bells,  the  Pierces,  the 
Woodburys,  the  Casses,  the  —  but  I  need  a  day  for 
the  rest. 

Without  doubt  Daniel  Webster  was  fortunate  in  the 
place  of  his  birth,  —  in  sight  of  the  majestic  moun 
tains  ;  not  far  from  the  beautiful  river  :  the  moun 
tains  in  their  grandeur,  the  type  of  his  character ;  the 
river  in  its  reserved  strength,  no  unfit  emblem  of  his 
life.  In  this  pure  air,  full  of  light  reflected  from  the 
purple  hills,  —  himself  made  thoughtful  by  the  near 
ness  of  dark  forests  and  the  sound  of  distant  water 
falls,  feeding  his  imagination  with  traditions  of  Rogers, 
Putnam,  and  Stark,  the  old  French  war  rangers,  and 
of  Cilley,  Scammell,  and  Poor,  his  father's  compatriots 
in  arms  during  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  —  Daniel 


DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE       353 

Webster  gathered  his  scanty  education.  A  genuine 
son  of  New  Hampshire.  Here  he  was  born.  Here  he 
"  mewed  his  mighty  youth."  Here  he  clothed  himself 
with  glorious  manhood.  He  owed  little  to  other  forms 
of  civilization.  His  mind,  his  character,  and  his  per 
sonality,  —  his  thoughts,  and  his  style  of  their  expres 
sion,  were  of  New  Hampshire.  His  latest  political 
and  constitutional  principles  bore  the  impress  of  his 
earliest.  When  he  left  his  native  State  he  was  a  com 
plete  man.  He  gained  little  or  nothing  that  was  es 
sential  by  association  with  communities  more  cultured 
than  those  he  left  behind  him.  These  were  of  the 
sea ;  those  were  of  the  mountains.  Not  always  in 
accord  with  the  dominant  political  party  of  his  native 
State,  he  was  more  nearly  so  than  with  the  extreme 
Federalists  of  New  England. 

Thus  he  was  born,  so  was  he  reared,  and  such  he 
remained,  —  a  true  and  loyal  son  of  New  Hampshire. 
She  claims  him  as  her  own.  With  all  his  great  quali 
ties  she  claims  him  ;  she  claims  him  with  all  his  faults. 
He  had  faults;  but  she  forgave  them  in  that  hour 
when  he  defended  the  Constitution ;  she  forgot  them, 
—  forgot  them  all  and  forever,  —  when  she  beheld  the 
Union  made  one  and  inseparable  by  the  inspiration  of 
his  prevailing  eloquence. 

Her  son,  this  complete  man,  bone  of  her  bone  and 
flesh  of  her  flesh,  she  gave  to  the  country.  Few  States 
ever  had  such  a  son  to  offer.  Fortunaje  the  country 
which  receives  such  a  gift !  Costly  as  it  was,  it  was 
given  without  reserve  and  for  all  the  ages.  New 
Hampshire  neither  is  able,  nor  desires,  to  recall  it. 
She  cannot  reclaim  his  wisdom  imbedded  in  the  Con 
stitution.  She  would  not  unloose  the  golden  cord  of 
patriotism  with  which  he  bound  the  States  in  perpetual 
union. 


354       DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE 

More  than  threescore  years  and  ten  have  passed 
since  Daniel  Webster,  in  the  prime  of  his  manhood  and 
in  the  fullness  of  his  great  powers,  went  forth  from 
New  Hampshire  to  the  service  of  his  country.  What 
those  services  were  is  known  of  all  men.  To-day  he 
returns  ;  once  more  his  foot  is  on  his  native  soil,  in 
sight  of  the  majestic  mountains  he  loved  so  well,  not 
far  from  the  river  on  whose  banks  he  was  born. 
Shouts  from  the  hillsides,  answering  shouts  from  the 
valleys,  welcome  his  return.  Sir,  I  cannot  think  him 
dead.  Not  in  the  flesh  indeed  does  he  stand  before 
us.  No  longer  do  those  dark  eyes  flash  upon  us 
their  inward  light,  and  the  voice  which  once  rang  like 
a  trumpet  is  now  silent.  And  yet,  in  a  sense  more 
true  than  his  own  pathetic  words,  he  still  lives.  To 
day  we  have  erected  a  statue  of  Daniel  Webster,  — 
of  Daniel  Webster  dead.  Webster  dead !  Who 
closed  the  eyes  of  that  great  intelligence  ?  Who  saw 
the  train  go  forth  bearing  that  majestic  soul  to  the 
tomb  ?  Who  wrapped  in  cerements  and  closed  the 
marble  doors  on  those  thoughts  that  breathed  and 
those  words  that  burned  ? 

Alas !  in  the  blindness  of  our  grief  we  thought  that 
it  was  so,  and  spake  of  him  as  of  one  that  was  dead. 
But  time  and  great  events,  and  men's  second  thoughts 
and  more  charitable  judgments,  and  loving  hearts  that 
quicken  at  the  sound  of  his  name,  —  all  proclaim  him 
living.  And  yet  we  have  erected  a  statue  of  Daniel 
Webster,  and  it  is  well ;  for  monuments  to  great 
actions  and  statues  of  men  truly  great  are  not  dead 
things;  nor  are  they  to  the  dead,  but  to  the  living. 
The  deeds  they  emblazon  are  immortal  deeds,  not  tran 
sitory  ;  deeds  which  light  the  centuries,  not  the  hours, 
in  their  pathway  to  glorious  actions.  They  illustrate 


DEDICATION  OF  WEBSTER  STATUE       355 

what  they  teach ;  they  are  what  they  commemorate. 
If  yonder  statue  is  not  Daniel  Webster  in  the  flesh,  it 
is  Daniel  Webster  transfigured  with  the  immortality 
of  genius ;  with  passionate  patriotism  which  never 
grows  cold;  with  love  of  home  and  kindred  which 
feels  no  touch  of  earthly  years  ;  with 

"...  truths  that  wake 
To  perish  never." 

And  through  the  years  that  are  to  come,  to  all 
who  may  enter  yonder  legislative  hall,  and  to  the 
long  procession  of  men  who  shall  walk  these  streets, 
those  lips  will  still  have  language  ;  will  still  defend 
the  Constitution ;  will  still  inspire  sentiments  of  na 
tionality.  Nor  can  I  think  that  it  ever  will  be  other 
wise;  for  the  inspiration  of  great  endeavor  is  its 
immortality;  the  potency  of  great  achievement  is 
its  indestructibleness.  The  past  assures  the  future. 
The  discourses  at  Plymouth  Rock  and  at  Bunker 
Hill  were  not  for  an  hour ;  nor  was  the  Great  Reply. 
In  the  days  of  their  utterance  they  were  resplendent, 
unprecedented  eloquence  ;  but  they  spake  truest  when 
they  became  wisdom  to  Lincoln  and  valor  to  Grant ; 
they  rang  loudest  when  heard  along  the  front  of 
battle,  and  inspired  deeds  of  immortal  heroism  on  a 
hundred  fields.  No,  the  statue  is  not  to  the  dead 
orator,  but  to  the  living,  who  speaks  to  us,  and  will 
speak  to  those  who  come  after  us,  as  he  spake  to 
those,  his  associates,  the  venerable  men  happily  with 
us  to-day,  who 

"...  followed  him,  honored  him, 

Lived  in  his  mild,  magnificent  eye, 

Learned  his  great  language,  caught  his  clear  accents, 

Made  him  their  pattern  to  live  and  to  die." 


A   GLANCE   AT   DANIEL  WEBSTER 

REPRINTED  FROM  "  THE  CENTURY  MAGAZINE  " 
OF  SEPTEMBER,  1893 


A  GLANCE  AT  DANIEL  WEBSTER 


"  A  FEW  flashes  of  rhetoric,  a  few  happy  epigrams, 
a  few  labored  speeches  which  now  seem  cold,  lifeless, 
and  commonplace,"  says  Lecky,  the  historian,  uare 
all  that  remain  of  the  eloquence  of  the  Pitts,  of  Fox, 
of  Sheridan,  or  of  Plunket"  —and  he  says  this  of 
the  Pitts,  among  the  greatest  of  English  orators ;  of 
Sheridan,  the  most  brilliant ;  of  Fox,  whom  Lord 
Brougham,  himself  a  great  orator,  pronounced  "  if  not 
the  greatest  orator,  certainly  the  most  accomplished 
debater,  that  ever  appeared  upon  the  theatre  of  affairs 
in  any  age  of  the  world."  Is  Daniel  Webster's  name 
now  to  be  added  to  those  on  whose  speeches  the 
shadow  of  oblivion  has  fallen  ?  James  Otis,  Jr.,  and 
Patrick  Henry,  as  orators  once  famous,  now  live  only 
in  tradition.  Clay's  and  Webster's  speeches,  it  is 
true,  have  been  preserved ;  but  who  now  reads 
Clay's,  and  how  long  will  Webster's  continue  to  be 
read  ? 

Webster's  talents  were  undeniably  of  the  first 
order :  but  it  is  said  that  he  lacked  genius ;  that  his 
limitations  were  serious ;  that  Hamilton  was  the 
greater  statesman,  Marshall  the  greater  jurist,  and 
Clay  the  unequaled  parliamentarian ;  that  he  origi 
nated  no  public  policy,  nor  greatly  improved  an  old 
one  ;  that  his  ethical  sense,  neither  strong  nor  acute, 
was  quickened  to  no  beneficent  purpose  like  that  of 


360  A   GLANCE  AT  WEBSTER 

Wilberforce  or  of  Garrison  ;  that  he  had  no  love  for 
the  people,  nor  they  for  him,  and  that  they  will  finally 
forget  him. 

Doubtless  much  of  this  is  true.  Nevertheless, 
Daniel  Webster  is  not  likely  to  be  forgotten,  nor  will 
his  words  cease  to  be  read.  For  he  wasted  no  time 
on  party  politics,  or  on  small  questions,  or  on  issues 
now  dead ;  but  always  in  the  courts,  or  in  the  Senate, 
or  before  the  people,  applied  his  matchless  powers  to 
subjects  of  great  moment  and  popular  interest,  sure 
to  remain  vital,  and,  like  the  seasons,  ever  returning. 
In  these  respects  he  stands  alone  among  the  states 
men  of  his  day ;  and  therefore,  if  they  would,  the 
people  can  never  forget  him.  Nor  can  statesmen, 
jurists,  or  scholars ;  because,  about  government,  laws, 
and  public  policy  he  said  the  most  authoritative  word, 
save  John  Marshall's,  and  said  it  in  a  way  not  easily 
bettered. 

Marshall  and  Webster  were  of  like  principles  and 
purpose,  and,  working  together  for  the  just  interpre 
tation  of  the  Constitution  in  its  relations  to  the 
States,  for  forty  years  they  affected  the  institutions 
of  the  country  more  profoundly  and  more  permanently 
than  any  other  two  men  of  their  day.  Marshall's 
tribunal  was  supreme  ;  but  the  people  were  sometimes 
restive  under  its  decisions,  two  of  which  were  openly 
defied  by  sovereign  States,  and  were  never  enforced. 
In  its  last  analysis  the  efficient  authority  of  the 
Supreme  Court  was  public  sentiment.  Therefore,  to 
make  the  general  government  truly  national  and 
efficient  in  all  its  departments,  it  was  necessary  to 
raise  the  people  to  a  conception  of  nationality,  and 
to  inspire  that  conception  with  patriotic  sentiment. 
This  was  Webster's  great  work.  In  this  way  he 


A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER  361 

cooperated  with  Marshall.  Webster  had  the  wider 
field,  more  varied  opportunities,  larger  audiences,  and 
a  farther-reaching  voice.  To  this  work  he  gave  his 
life,  and  his  work  was  crowned  only  when  the  great 
Reply  to  Hayne  bore  fruit  in  the  deeds  of  Lincoln 
and  Grant.  This  the  people  now  understand,  and 
they  have  given  to  Webster  their  respect  and  their  ad 
miration,  but  not  yet,  I  think,  a  place  in  their  hearts 

—  the  true  Valhalla.  It  may  be  that  they  have  some 
thing  to  forget  and  something  to  remember  before 
they  learn  to  regard,  as  they  regard  Clay  and  Lincoln, 
this  man  who,  though  he  professed  no  love  for  the 
people  whom  he  served  as  few  men  have,  loved  kin 
dred  and  friends,  and  the  homes  of  his  ancestors,  and 
the  graves  of  their  dead,  with  a  pathetic  tenderness 
which  has  suffused  the  eyes  of  thousands.  It  may  be 
that  he  must  wait  for  men's  second  thoughts,  their 
more  charitable  judgment,  and  the  next  ages. 

A  famous  anti-slavery  orator  once  publicly  thanked 
God  that  Daniel  Webster  was  not  born  in  Massachu 
setts  ;  and  this  was  received  with  acclaiming  shouts 
by  the  audience.  Nor  did  they  appear  to  notice  any 
incongruity  when  the  orator  proceeded  to  objurgate 
Webster,  just  as  though  he  had  been  born  in  Boston, 
and  were  a  recreant  descendant  of  Thomas  Dudley. 
This  is  the  common  mistake  —  to  judge  Webster  as 
a  Puritan  in  origin,  descent,  inherited  principles,  edu 
cation,  and  consequent  responsibilities.  He  was  no 
Puritan,  nor  did  he  ever  pretend  to  be  one.  The 
Massachusetts  Puritans,  who  came  to  Boston  Bay  in 
1630,  were  east  of  England  people.  Daniel  Webster's 
ancestors  were  from  the  north  of  England,  and,  com 
ing  six  years  later,  entered  New  Hampshire  by  the 

Piscataqua,  and  for  generations  were  dispersed  along 


362  A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER 

the  skirmish  line  of  civilization,  remote  from  the  Puri 
tans  of  the  Bay,  and  shared  neither  in  their  glory  nor 
in  their  shame. 

In  Webster  was  no  admixture  of  nationality,  no 
crossing  of  plebeian  with  patrician  blood.  He  was  a 
genuine  son  of  the  soil,  though  not,  like  Burns,  of  a 
soil  alive  with  a  hundred  generations  of  the  dead,  nor 
of  a  soil  like  that  about  Boston,  every  sod  of  which 
was  quickened  with  associations  touching  the  hearts 
and  moulding  the  characters  of  those  born  on  it ;  but 
of  a  soil  on  which  his  father's  footfall  was  the  first  of 
civilized  man  ever  heard  in  that  silent  wilderness. 
He  was  a  rustic,  yet  with  marks  of  gentle  blood  in  his 
shapely  hands  and  feet,  his  well-proportioned  limbs, 
and  his  high-bred  face  of  no  known  type,  unlike  even 
his  own  brother,  who  was  of  Grecian  form  and  face. 
We  know  that  soil  and  climate  affect  character ;  but 
it  is  not  easy  to  accept,  save  as  a  poetic  theory,  the 
"pathetic  fallacy"  with  which  Wordsworth  imbued 
his  generation  and  our  own,  that  Nature  has  conscious 
relations  with 

"  Her  foster-child,  her  inmate,  Man," 

and  forms  his  principles  and  regulates  his  methods  of 
action  agreeably  to  her  own.  But  Daniel  Webster 
was  very  like  Nature.  Like  her,  he  was  unethical ; 
like  her,  he  was  not  revolutionary ;  and  like  her,  he 
applied  his  powers  along  the  lines  of  normal  develop 
ment. 

Of  the  Puritans  neither  by  birth  nor  by  circum 
stances,  he  possessed  few  of  their  virtues  and  none  of 
their  defects,  and  least  of  all  their  indomitable  pro 
vinciality  of  thought  and  conduct.  In  this  he  stands 
quite  alone  among  the  public  men  of  his  day  in  New 
England.  His  spirit  of  nationality  appeared  so  early 


A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER  363 

in  life  that  it  indicated  character  rather  than  educa 
tion.  And  the  depth  of  the  sentiment  appears  from 
this,  that  though  born  a  Federalist,  and  from  early 
manhood  associated  professionally  and  socially  with 
some  of  the  very  able  men  prominent  in  the  "  Essex 
Junto  "  and  in  the  Hartford  Convention,  he  neither 
accepted  their  principles  nor  imitated  their  conduct. 
At  no  time  was  he  a  Southern  man  or  a  Northern 
man,  but  to  the  end  of  his  life  a  National  Federalist 
after  the  fashion  of  Washington. 

This  also  is  noticeable,  that  although  Webster  was 
educated  at  a  small  college  in  the  backwoods,  where 
rhetoric  was  in  its  worst  estate,  and  at  a  time  when 
our  native  literature  was  to  the  last  degree  conven 
tional  and  vapid,  he  soon  shook  himself  clear  of  his 
surroundings,  and,  without  instructor  or  example, 
formed  a  style  which  for  all  the  varied  forms  in  which 
he  expressed  himself  —  either  in  the  forum,  or  in  the 
Senate,  or  in  diplomacy,  or  before  the  people,  or  in 
familiar  letters  —  still  remains  the  best  model. 

Mr.  Webster's  fame  as  an  orator  is  secure,  and  his 
services  to  the  country  are  acknowledged ;  but  in  his 
last  days  he  suffered  some  obloquy  by  reason  of  his 
speech  of  the  7th  of  March,  1850,  —  a  speech  which, 
whatever  else  may  be  said  of  it,  was  exactly  on  the 
line  of  his  life-work  for  union  and  nationality,  which 
he  took  up  before  he  left  college,  and  pursued  with 
assiduity  and  constancy  for  more  than  half  a  century. 
Nor  do  the  recorded  lives  of  statesmen  give  many 
examples,  if  one  other,  of  a  great  and  beneficent  pur 
pose  conceived  so  early  in  life,  pursued  so  vigorously, 
or  crowned  with  so  great  success.  He  had  coadjutors, 
but  in  clearness  and  consistency  of  purpose  he  stood 
alone.  He  seized  every  occasion  —  often  made  occa- 


364  A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER 

sion  — to  unfold  his  constitutional  views,  and  to  com 
mend  them  to  the  people. 

Both  as  statesman  and  as  orator  Webster  owed 
much  to  his  historical  sense.  He  was  not  original, 
constructive,  or  aggressive ;  but  he  had  what,  as  I 
think,  Hamilton  did  not  have,  nor  Clay,  —  a  clear 
historical  perception  of  the  essential  character  of  our 
English  race,  always  moving  on  the  line  of  its  normal 
development,  rather  than  by  revolution,  toward  na 
tionality,  in  which,  though  monarchy  may  have  been 
its  form,  popular  government  has  been  its  objective 
purpose.  Webster's  historical  sense  gave  precision 
and  consistency  to  his  course  as  a  statesman  and  to 
his  speech  as  an  orator.  Every  step  he  made  was  a 
step  forward.  Circumstances  beyond  his  control,  like 
the  change  in  the  tariff  policy  and  the  anti-slavery 
movement,  with  which,  as  a  Nationalist,  he  probably 
had  little  sympathy,  forced  him  into  positions  which 
he  would  not  have  chosen.  But  no  statesman  ever  had 
fewer  occasions  for  that  immunity  which  the  people 
so  often  and  so  readily  accorded  to  Jefferson,  to  Clay, 
to  Jackson,  and  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  They  made 
many  mistakes,  including  Webster's,  and  were  for 
given  ;  Webster  made  one,  and  was  lost  —  for  a  time. 

Webster's  historical  sense  appears  in  his  orations. 
In  what  similar  collection  can  be  found  so  large  a 
body  of  thought  on  various  subjects,  covering  forty 
years  of  public  life,  so  consistent,  so  evenly  and  so 
constantly  working  to  one  great  purpose,  expressed 
with  equal  cogency,  propriety,  and  eloquence  ?  Cer 
tainly,  neither  in  Fox's  nor  in  Burke's,  nor  in  any 
other  known  to  me.  Goldwin  Smith  has  said  that 
"in  political  oratory  it  would  be  hard  to  find  any 
thing  superior  to  the  Reply  to  Hayne  :  in  forensic 


A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER  365 

oratory  it  would  be  hard  to  find  anything  superior  to 
his  speech  on  the  murder  of  White ;  among  show 
speeches  it  would  be  hard  to  find  anything  superior 
to  the  Plymouth  oration."  This  Plymouth  oration, 
the  earliest  and  best  by  Webster,  in  which  he  formed 
and  carried  to  its  highest  development  a  new  kind  of 
popular  oratory,  illustrates  the  historic  sense  of  which 
I  have  spoken.  After  all  that  has  been  written,  it 
remains  by  far  the  clearest  and  most  precise  view  of 
those  causes  which,  beginning  with  the  Reformation, 
and  acting  on  the  English  people,  in  the  fullness  of 
time  led  to  the  colonization  of  America,  and  to  the 
setting  up  here  of  those  institutions  which  best  exem 
plify  the  sterling  qualities  of  our  English  race.  The 
key-note  of  this  address  sounds  through  all  his 
speeches.  He  struck  it  loudly,  and  the  nation  heard  ; 
he  struck  it  truly,  and  it  dominates  all  later  speech. 

With  no  American  orator  save  Hamilton  —  and 
with  him  only  at  the  bar  or  in  the  affairs  of  state  — 
need  Webster  be  compared.  Hamilton's  speeches 
have  not  been  preserved,  and  his  fame  as  an  orator 
rests  mainly  upon  tradition.  To  Burke's  genius  for 
discursive  speculation  or  to  his  copiousness  of  felici 
tous,  light-diffusing  phrase,  Webster  made  no  preten 
sion,  nor,  on  the  other  hand,  did  he  ever  lose  sight  of 
his  purpose  in  prolix  or  irrelevant  generalities,  or  im 
peril  his  cause  by  lack  of  measure,  judgment,  or  self- 
control.  He  was  the  better  orator.  He  gained  his 
causes.  He  seldom  attempted  Burke's  highest  flights, 
but  when  he  did  he  came  safely  down.  Webster's 
oratory  was  symmetrical  and  harmonious,  working 
evenly,  by  just  degrees,  and  inevitably,  to  his  one  con 
stant  purpose  of  convincing  and  persuading  those  who 
heard  him.  Loyal  to  his  art,  he  was  never  seduced 


366  A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER 

by  desire  of  popular  applause  or  by  a  wish  to  please 
the  schools. 

Lord  Chatham  is  accounted  the  most  consummate  of 
English  orators.  In  my  youth  I  greatly  admired  that 
passage  in  his  speech  on  the  address  to  the  king  in 
1777,  in  which,  referring  to  Lord  Suffolk,  who  had 
defended  the  employment  of  the  Indians  in  the  war 
against  the  colonies,  he  exclaimed  :  "  From  the  tapes 
try  that  adorns  these  walls,  the  immortal  ancestor  of 
this  noble  lord  frowns  with  indignation  at  the  disgrace 
of  his  country."  It  is  a  very  striking  passage  ;  but 
I  once  heard  Webster  say  grander  words.  It  was  on 
the  17th  of  June,  1843,  when  I  was  one  of  that  vast 
throng,  gathered  at  Bunker  Hill,  which  saw  Webster 
raise  his  outstretched  arm  up  to  the  newly  completed 
monument,  and  heard  him  say :  "  It  is  not  from  my 
lips  —  it  could  not  be  from  any  human  lips  —  that 
that  stream  of  eloquence  is  this  day  to  flow,  most 
competent  to  move  and  excite  this  vast  multitude 
around  me.  The  powerful  speaker  stands  motionless 
before  us."  I  felt  the  thrill  which  ran  through  that 
vast  audience,  and  I  saw  their  uplifted  eyes  and 
blanched  cheeks,  and  joined  in  that  responsive  shout 
which  told,  as  no  words  could  tell,  that  we  had  heard 
one  of  the  most  perfect  passages  in  all  oratory.  Such 
sentences  fairly  contrast  these  great  orators.  Web 
ster  could  never  have  laid  himself  open  to  Lord  Suf 
folk's  crushing  reply,  that  Chatham  rashly  condemned 
a  policy  inaugurated  by  himself  only  a  few  years  be 
fore.  Nor  could  Lecky  have  said  of  Webster,  as  he 
has  said  of  Chatham,  that  he  was  often  florid  and 
meretricious,  theatrical  and  affected,  far  from  pure  in 
taste,  and,  indeed,  too  much  of  a  mountebank.  But 
Chatham's  eccentricities  were  those  of  genius.  Burke 


A   GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER  367 

had  them,  and  Sheridan  had  them.  If  Webster 
lacked  genius,  he  was  at  least  free  from  its  eccentrici 
ties.  He  was  perfectly  sane  in  his  oratory,  and,  it 
may  be,  the  greatest  perfectly  sane  orator  who  ever 
spoke  English. 

Webster  could  also  be  dull  —  in  his  later  years, 
very  dull.  Those  who  heard  him  in  his  prime  are 
quite  angry  when  one  doubts  whether  he  ever  could 
have  been  as  popular  an  orator  as  Everett  or  Choate 
or  Phillips.  Few  now  live  who  heard  him  in  those 
early  days,  when  he  was  at  his  best.  I,  who  heard 
him  often  between  1840  and  1850,  never  heard  him 
at  his  best  but  once,  and  then  only  for  a  few  minutes. 
The  circumstances  were  these  :  — 

At  the  festival  of  the  Sons  of  New  Hampshire, 
gathered  in  the  hall  of  the  Fitchburg  Railroad  in 
1849,  Mr.  Webster  presided  with  admirable  grace, 
and  spoke  of  his  native  State  as  her  sons  would  like 
to  hear  her  spoken  of.  His  speech,  though  interest 
ing,  was  not  particularly  striking  until,  passing  from 
our  own  affairs  to  those  of  Hungary,  then  in  her 
struggle  for  liberty,  he  said  :  "  I  see  that  the  Emperor 
of  Russia  demands  of  Turkey  that  the  noble  Kossuth 
and  his  companions  shall  be  given  up  to  be  dealt  with 
at  his  pleasure.  And  I  see  that  this  demand  is  made 
in  derision  of  the  established  laws  of  nations.  Gentle 
men,  there  is  something  on  earth  greater  than  arbi 
trary  or  despotic  power.  The  lightning  has  its  power, 
and  the  whirlwind  has  its  power,  and  the  earthquake 
has  its  power ;  but  there  is  something  among  men 
more  capable  of  shaking  despotic  power  than  the 
lightning,  the  whirlwind,  or  the  earthquake,  and  that 
is  the  excited  and  aroused  indignation  of  the  whole 
civilized  world." 


368  A    GLANCE  AT   WEBSTER 

Before  we  were  aware  of  what  was  coming  his  ma 
jestic  form  began  to  tower,  and  his  eyes  to  kindle,  and 
his  voice  soon  caught  the  key-note  of  the  vast  build 
ing,  till  in  an  illusion  of  the  senses  the  lightning 
flashed,  and  the  whirlwind  shook  the  place  where  we 
were  sitting,  and  the  firm  foundation  rocked  as  with 
an  earthquake.  But  it  was  an  illusion  of  the  sort 
produced  only  by  famous  orators  like  those 

"  Whose  resistless  eloquence  .  .  . 
Shook  the  arsenal,  and  fulrained  over  Greece." 

I  once  saw  Mr.  Webster  when  he  was  forty  and  I 
was  eleven.  The  best  likeness  of  him  at  that  time,  it 
seems  to  me,  is  the  bust  by  Powers.  I  saw  him  often 
between  1840  and  1850,  and  the  best  likeness  of  him 
at  that  time,  I  should  say,  is  the  one  now  printed  for 
the  first  time  in  this  magazine.1 

1  The  Century  Magazine,  for  September,  1893. 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  IN  POETRY 

REPRINTED  FROM  THE  "  DARTMOUTH  LITERARY  MONTHLY  " 
FOR  OCTOBER,  1886 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  IN  POETRY 


THIS  essay  to  mark  the  stages  by  which  familiarity 
with  landscape  is  developed  in  our  lives  and  exhibited 
in  our  poetry  was  suggested  by  a  sentence  on  which 
my  eye  chanced  to  fall  in  Clarence  Stedman's  "  Poets 
of  America." 

I  had  already  read  Stedman's  book  with  some  care, 
but  without  particularly  noticing  the  passage  to  which 
I  refer,  and  which  I  shall  presently  quote.  His  book 
requires  and  repays  attentive  reading.  Taken  on  the 
run  or  opened  at  random,  one  may  find  some  things 
which  give  pause  to  assent  and  others  that  provoke 
contradiction ;  but  if  one  will  begin  at  the  beginning 
and  follow  Stedman  to  his  close,  if  he  will  imitate  his 
cautious  estimate  of  included  facts  and  use  his  own 
critical  insight,  and,  especially,  if  he  will  follow  Sted 
man's  example  and  be  chary  of  hasty  generalization, 
he  will  be  in  the  way  to  a  fair  judgment  of  American 
poetry.  And  if  it  differs  materially  from  Stedman's, 
which  is  not  likely,  at  least  it  will  be  with  respect  for 
the  breadth  of  his  view,  his  sagacity,  his  candor,  and 
his  charming  style.  Perhaps  he  will  not  be  troubled, 
as  I  was  not,  by  some  things  which  when  considered 
out  of  relation  seem  to  be  discrepancies ;  perhaps  he 
will  not  notice  them,  as  I  did  not.  On  reflection, 
Stedman's  method  appears  to  be  the  only  practicable 
one  which  leads  to  satisfactory  results.  Of  some  lit- 


372        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

eratures  peremptory  judgments  are  permissible.  One 
may  say,  for  example,  with  Milman,  that  in  invention, 
life,  and  distinctness  of  conception,  and  pure,  trans 
lucent  language,  Greek  poetry  stands  alone  ;  and  of 
Latin  poetry,  that  in  lofty  sentiment,  majestic,  if  ela 
borate  verse,  in  vigor  in  condensing  and  expressing 
moral  truth,  it  surpasses  all  poetry.  And  so  the 
poetry  of  Italy,  of  Germany,  of  France,  and  of  Eng 
land  may  each  be  characterized  in  a  phrase.  But  any 
such  judgment  of  American  poetry  must  be  recalled 
for  reversal  or  modification. 

Should  it  be  said,  for  instance,  as  it  often  has  been, 
at  home  and  abroad,  that  our  poetry  is  without  ori 
ginality,  and  is  merely  a  pale  reflection  of  English 
thought,  feeling,  and  presentation ;  that  the  thin  song 
of  our  mythical  lark  is  only  a  faint  echo  of  the  full- 
throated  songster  which  rises  from  English  meadows 
three  thousand  miles  away,  —  the  judgment  would  be 
both  unfair  and  erroneous,  as  Stedman  shows,  in  fail 
ing  to  take  account  of  that  which  differentiates  our 
poetry,  in  form,  in  proportion,  and  in  a  certain  purity 
of  tone  and  local  color,  from  English  song.  On  the 
other  hand,  even  with  such  changes  from  the  English 
standard  as  have  been  made  in  it,  and  for  the  better, 
the  result  would  hardly  warrant  the  assertion  that  we 
have  developed  an  original  literature.  Now  the  value 
of  Stedman's  book  is  this :  it  helps  us  to  see  just  what 
the  outcome  of  our  poetry  is  thus  far ;  just  where  it 
falls  short,  and  what  of  promise  there  is  in  its  future. 

Nevertheless,  I  have  a  little  quarrel  with  him ;  at 
least  I  hope  I  have.  In  fact  I  must  have,  to  get  on. 
No  wind,  no  race !  I  am  in  the  case  of  a  parson  who 
has  meditated  his  discourse  to  a  certain  text,  and  too 
late  discovers  a  doubtful  exegesis.  Stedman's  sen- 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       373 

tence  is  this  :  "  Fellowship  with  the  spirit  of  Ameri 
can  landscape  and  the  recognition  of  its  beauty  and 
majesty  were  the  earliest,  as  they  are  the  most  con 
stant,  traits  of  American  verse."  Now  if  by  the  ear 
liest  poets  Stedman  means  the  group  of  which  Bryant 
was  the  first,  as  seems  probable  enough,  looking  at 
the  general  tenor  of  his  book,  then  there  is  no  dis 
pute,  and  I  must  hunt  for  another  text ;  but  if,  as  I 
hope,  pro  hac  vice,  he  had  in  mind  the  whole  poetic 
band,  which,  headed  by  Anne  Bradstreet  and  Michael 
Wigglesworth,  has  come,  hand  in  hand,  chanting 
down  through  the  American  ages,  then  I  look  no 
further,  but  proceed. 

Leaving  Stedman  for  a  moment,  I  quote  from 
Emerson's  "  Nature : "  "  To  speak  truly,  few  adult 
persons  can  see  nature.  Most  persons  do  not  see  the 
sun.  At  least  they  have  only  a  very  superficial  see 
ing.  The  sun  illuminates  only  the  eye  of  the  man, 
but  shines  into  the  eye  and  the  heart  of  the  child." 
He  had  just  said,  "  Nature  never  becomes  a  toy  to  a 
wise  spirit.  The  flowers,  the  animals,  the  mountains, 
reflected  the  wisdom  of  his  best  hour,  as  much  as  they 
had  delighted  the  simplicity  of  his  childhood." 

Without  stopping  to  consider  how  these  seemingly 
contradictory  passages  may  be  reconciled,  I  quote 
them  to  call  attention  to  the  different  methods  of 
Emerson  and  Stedman,  both  poets  and  critics,  —  and 
to  their  methods  alone ;  for  no  one  more  sincerely 
than  Stedman  himself  would  deprecate  a  general 
comparison.  The  difference  is  this:  Stedman  gives 
reasons,  but  seldom  judgments,  leaving  them  to  be 
inferred  from  his  whole  work.  Emerson,  on  the  con 
trary,  seldom  indulges  us  with  his  reasons,  but  pro 
nounces  judgments  peremptorily  for  one  party  to-day, 


374       LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

for  the  other  to-morrow ;  but  we  wait  in  vain  for  the 
reconciling  judgment  which  marshals  the  facts  and 
declares  the  general  law. 

I  also  marvel  that  one  with  Emerson's  acuteness 
should  fail  to  notice  that  conscious  intelligence, 
whether  of  mind  or  soul,  is  the  recognition  of  nature 
which  he  was  endeavoring  to  explain  and  promote. 
Without  doubt,  to  the  open-eyed  wonder-faculty  of 
children  and  primitive  races,  and  possibly  even  to  the 
higher  order  of  animals,  the  sun,  the  moon,  and  the 
stars,  the  sea,  the  prairies,  and  the  mountains,  to 
gether  with  the  more  striking  phenomena  of  nature, 
as  thunder  and  lightning,  the  succession  of  the  sea 
sons,  and  of  night  and  day,  are  mysterious  both  to 
sense  and  soul ;  and  so  is  a  fire-cracker,  a  gimcrack,  or 
a  bit  of  colored  ribbon ! 

"  The  Ode  on  Immortality  is  the  high-water  mark 
which  the  intellect  has  reached  in  this  age,"  wrote 
Emerson  in  185G.  That  he  had  studied  Wordsworth 
and  Coleridge  is  evident  from  the  sentences  quoted 
above,  and  other  passages  in  "  Nature."  But  I  am 
not  sure,  though  Sir  Henry  Taylor  thought  otherwise, 
that  Wordsworth,  in  making  use  of  the  reminiscences 
of  a  preexistent  state,  which  many  of  us  vaguely  have, 
did  not  preserve  throughout  his  highest  imaginings 
the  distinction  between  tk  the  glory  and  the  dream," 
and  any  rational  theory  of  the  development  of  human 
faculties.1 

1  Matthew  Arnold,  in  his  preface  to  Wordsworth's  poems,  says, 
"  The  instinct  of  delight  in  Nature  and  her  beauty  had  no  doubt 
extraordinary  strength  in  Wordsworth  himself  as  a  child.  But  to  say 
that  universally  this  instinct  is  mighty  in  childhood,  and  tends  to  die 
away  afterwards,  is  to  say  what  is  extremely  doubtful.  In  many  peo 
ple,  perhaps  with  the  majority  of  educated  people,  the  love  of  nature 
is  nearly  imperceptible  at  ten  years  old,  but  strong  and  operative  at 
thirtv." 


LANDSCAPE  IX  LIFE  JL\'D  POETRY       375 

No  doubt  with  years  the  instincts  become  more 
intelligent ;  but  it  seems  to  me  that  in  the  develop 
ment  of  the  understanding  of  nature,  either  in  races 
or  in  individuals,  the  first  stage  m  essentially  non- 
intelligent,  or.  at  best,  semi  -  intelligent,  feeling  — 
strongest  when  nerves  are  unworn  and  vitality  exu 
berant. 

The  next  stage  —  hardly  reaching  intelligent  con 
ception  of  the  relations  of  man  to  the  external  world 
—  is  that  in  which  to  all  persons  not  color  blind  or 
afflicted  with  similar  congenital  defect,  arises  the  per 
ception  of  certain  harmonies  of  proportion,  of  light, 
of  shade,  and  of  color  in  a  landscape,  accompanied,  it 
may  be,  even  with  vague  imtinmi  of  correspondence 
between  natural  objects  and  human  emotions.  There 
are  those  —  the  majority  of  mankind — who  ~  en  joy 
fine  natural  scenery.** 

But  this  is  not  that  true  ~  fellowship  with  the  spirit 
of  American  landscape  "  which  Stedman  had  in  mind. 
That,  while  it  does  not  demand  the  classification  of 
Ae  botanist,  implies  the  development  by  use  of  those 
faculties  upon  which  we  rely  for  discrimination  of 
differences,  and  for  the  recognition  of  the  relation  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  of  that  artistic  sense  found,  if 
found  at  alL  in  the  soul  alone,  but  receiving  its  inspira 
tion  and  its  impulse  from  the  external  world.  At  this 
stage  we  may  truly  fellowship  with  the  spirit  of  the 
landscape.  But  of  such  there  are  comparatively  few 
(Mr.  Arnold  notwithstanding),  even  among  those  who 
deem  themselves,  and  are  deemed  by  others,  cultured 
people.  These  elect  persons  may  be  called  happy. 

But  happy  indeed  are  tfcoae  who,  while  they  accept 
the  philosophical  distinction  between  soul  and  sub 
stance,  recognizing  the  former  alone  as  sentient. 


376       LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

yet  pass  into  that  ideal  world  which  discovers  a  rela 
tionship,  not  vague  or  fanciful,  but  clear  and  real, 
between  all  created  things  and  the  human  soul,  and 
assumes  the  recognition  of  this  relationship  by  the 
world  of  nature  itself. 

I  now  desire  to  trace  the  progress  from  that  stage 
in  which  we  are  merely  susceptible  to  fine  scenery,  to 
that  in  which  the  poet  and  his  reader  live  in  familiar 
association  with  nature,  and,  ideally,  nature  lives  with 
them. 

Much  that  passes  for  nature  study  has  little  claim 
to  be  called  such  ;  and  the  distinction  between  that 
which  is  real  and  that  which  is  merely  formal  is  vital 
not  only  to  self-culture,  but  likewise  to  literature. 
Consider  this,  that  many  persons,  besides  an  intimate 
acquaintance  with  Thomson,  Wordsworth,  Bryant,  and 
Tennyson,  may  have  a  just  sense  of  their  peculiar  ex 
cellences,  and  yet  lack  appreciation  of  nature,  or  a 
disposition  to  fellowship  with  her,  or  to  bring  the  poe 
try  they  so  much  admire  to  the  crucial  test  by  con 
fronting  it  with  nature  —  that  very  nature  of  which  it 
claims  to  be  the  interpreter. 

How  many  of  us,  for  example,  judging  solely  from 
the  descriptions  themselves  in  "  Evangeline,"  can  say 
whether  Longfellow  ever  saw  the  little  village  of 
Grand  Pre,  - 

"  In  the  Acadian  land,  on  the  shores  of  the  Basin  of  Minas  ;  " 

or  the  country  at  the  foot  of  the  Ozarks,  which  Ga 
briel  entered,  where  — 

"...  are  the  wondrous  beautiful  prairies, 
Billowy  bays  of  grass  ever  rolling  in  shadow  and  sunshine, 
Bright  with  luxuriant  clusters  of  roses  and  purple  amorphas  "  ? 

In  one  of  his  earlier  poems  he  wrote  :  — 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       377 

"  When  winter  winds  are  piercing  shrill, 
And  through  the  white-thorn  blows  the  gale  ;  " 

but  in  his  collected  poems  he  changed  white-thorn  to 
hawthorn.  What  effect  has  this  substitution  on  the 
verisimilitude  of  the  description  or  on  the  associations 
suggested  ?  or  would  it  make  any  difference  in  either 
to  the  reader  were  he  informed  that  neither  white 
thorn  nor  red-thorn  nor  hawthorn  ever  grew  where  the 
scene  of  the  poem  is  laid?  Or  if  it  be  said,  as  fairly 
enough  it  might  be,  that  the  fidelity  to  nature  of  Long 
fellow's  descriptions  can  hardly  be  determined  from 
isolated  passages,  then  let  the  question  be  changed  to 
this :  How  many  of  us  who  value  Longfellow's  poetry, 
which  never  attempts  heights  inaccessible,  but  keeps 
within  easy  range  of  common  hopes,  joys,  and  sorrows, 
and  delights  us  with  descriptions  of  nature,  can  say 
whether,  judging  from  the  whole  body  of  his  poetical 
work,  he  wrote  with  his  eye  on  the  scene,  or  from  gen 
eral  recollection  of  landscape,  or  from  books ;  and 
that,  in  one  case,  we  have  assurance  of  its  continuance, 
and  in  the  other,  an  apprehension  lest  his  poetry,  not 
withstanding  great  and  manifold  excellences,  will 
gradually  fade  away  ? 

The  test  might  be  repeated  indefinitely,  but  one 
more  example  will  suffice.  Southey,  though  he  pos 
sessed  many  admirable  powers,  can  hardly  be  said  to 
live  in  his  poetry,  much  of  which  was  descriptive. 
Passing  over  that  part  of  it  which  lies  in  the  realm  of 
fancy,  and  therefore  not  subject  to  verification,  though 
none  the  less  amenable  to  the  law  of  verisimilitude,  as 
Leigh  Hunt  has  shown  in  respect  to  Ariosto  and  his 
winged  horses,  can  we  lay  finger  on  this  and  that  pas 
sage  in  his  poetry  which  deals  with  familiar  aspects 
of  nature,  and  say  that  it  lacks  verity  ;  or,  taking  his 


378        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

one  descriptive  poem,  the  "  Falls  of  Lodore,"  which 
survives,  mark  the  vital  signs  by  which  it  does  sur 
vive? 

This  may  be  a  small  matter,  but  not  so  thought  one 
of  the  masters  of  objective  poetry.  Scott's  descrip 
tions  possess  the  excellences  so  conspicuously  wanting 
in  Southey's.  Southey  wrote  in  and  from  his  library ; 
Scott,  on  the  contrary,  composed  sub  Jove,  sometimes 
afoot,  like  Wordsworth,  but  often  in  the  saddle. 
"  Oh !  man,  I  had  many  a  grand  gallop  among  the 
braes  when  I  was  thinking  of  Marmion."  Lockhart, 
to  whom  this  was  said,  tells  us  that  Scott  ascertained, 
in  his  own  person,  that  a  good  horseman,  well  mounted, 
might  gallop  from  the  shores  of  Loch  Yennachar  to 
the  rock  of  Stirling  within  the  space  allotted  Fitz- 
James  in  "  The  Lady  of  the  Lake."  In  the  same 
poem  Scott  wrote  of  Ellen  :  — 

"...  she  stooped,  and,  looking  round, 
Plucked  a  blue  harebell  from  the  ground." 

Was  it  in  reference  to  these  or  to  some  similar  lines 
that  Scott,  being  in  doubt  whether  the  flower  grew  in 
that  particular  spot,  galloped  a  dozen  miles  to  verify 
the  fact? 

These  and  many  other  examples  which  are  found 
in  Lockhart  disclose  one  secret  of  Scott's  vitality  as 
a  poet,  and  indicate  the  degree  of  his  "  fellowship  with 
the  spirit  of  the  landscape." 

For  evidence  of  such  conscientious  study  of  nature, 
we  shall  look  in  vain  in  the  writings  of  our  earliest 
poets  or  in  those  of  more  than  a  score  of  our  latest. 
And  to  the  group  of  which  Bryant  was  the  earliest, 
and  many  think  the  best,  nature  was  familiar  in  her 
elemental  forces  and  grander  aspects  rather  than  in 
those  minute  details  which  concern  the  days  more  than 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       379 

the  seasons.  So  far  from  fellowship  with  nature  were 
our  earlier  poets,  that  the  lack  of  it  was  one  cause, 
perhaps  the  chief  cause,  of  the  sterility  of  their  poetry 
and  of  the  literary  spirit  of  our  people. 

To  put  this  matter,  which  is  of  vital  importance  to 
the  poet,  and  to  his  readers  as  well,  on  a  more  sub 
stantial  basis,  I  will  refer  to  some  facts  within  my 
own  observation. 

When  I  was  in  college  we  thought  that  Willis,  then 
in  vogue,  was  one  of  the  best  of  our  poets.  His  poems 
had  been  recently  reprinted,  and  were  generally  read. 
I  recollect  with  what  enthusiasm  I  learned,  and  often 
repeated,  the  poem  he  called  "  Contemplation,"  which 
opened  in  this  way  :  — 

"  They  are  all  up  —  the  innumerable  stars  — 
And  hold  their  place  in  heaven.     My  eyes  have  been 
Searching  the  pearly  depths  through  which  they  spring, 
Like  beautiful  creations,  till  I  feel 
As  if  it  were  a  new  and  perfect  world, 
Waiting  in  silence  for  the  word  of  God 
To  breathe  it  into  motion." 

I  thought  it  very  fine ;  nor  was  I  alone  in  this.  The 
delusion  was  quite  general,  at  least  among  my  friends. 
How  long  it  continued  I  do  not  recollect ;  but  it  was 
in  a  measure  dispelled,  after  the  coming  to  Hanover 
of  a  few  copies  of  Tennyson  and  Motherwell  —  the 
latter  probably  somewhat  over-estimated  —  just  then 
republished  in  America.  Their  poetry  opened  a  new 
world  into  which  we  entered,  and  there  found  Words 
worth  and  Bryant.  Nor  was  it  long  before  we  learned 
that  the  power  they  had  over  us  lay  in  the  power  which 
nature  had  over  them. 

This  was  much,  though  perhaps  nothing  extraordi 
nary  as  a  fact  in  our  education.  But  that  which  even 
to  this  day  seems  remarkable  is,  that  the  change  in  us 


380        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

was  not  radical.  It  was  essentially  literary,  —  not  a 
new  birth,  or  even  a  stage  of  development.  It  was 
the  perception,  in  their  poetry,  as  literature,  of  a  cer 
tain  freshness  and  vital  power  not  found  in  the  poetry 
we  had  previously  admired  ;  not  any  wider  or  closer 
acquaintance  with  nature.  Delightedly  we  read  about, 
and  in  our  mind's  eye  even  saw 

"  A  host  of  golden  daffodils 
Beside  the  lake,  beneath  the  trees, 
Fluttering  and  dancing  in  the  breeze," 

but  without  the  slightest  impulse  to  find  daffodils,  or 
anything  like  them,  around  Hanover.*  We  read  with 
zest  and,  I  think,  with  true  literary  appreciation,  the 
"  Lines  composed  a  few  miles  above  Tintern  Abbey," 
marveling,  however,  that  Wordsworth  should  think 
the  place  of  writing  worth  noting  so  particularly,  and 
heard  the 

"...  waters  rolling  from  the  mountain  springs 
With  a  sweet  inland  murmur." 

In  fancy  we 

"...  turned  to  thee, 
O  sylvan  Wye,  thou  wanderer  through  the  woods," 

but  we  did  not  beat  up  the  haunts  of  our  New  Hamp 
shire  Wye,  and  our  Yarrow  remained  "  Yarrow  Un- 
visited."  No  doubt  some  of  us  looked  for  the  de 
scendant  of  Bryant's  "Waterfowl,"  but  only  that  we 

"  Might  mark  his  distant  flight  to  do  him  wrong  !  " 

Nevertheless  it  was  a  delightful  world,  though  unseen 
save  through  the  poet's  eyes.  Delightful,  but  unfruit 
ful.  Just  when  or  how  we  came  out  of  it  into  a  world 
where  we  truly  fellowshiped  with  nature,  I  would  tell 
if  I  knew.  For  he  who  does  know,  and  will  point  out 
a  practicable  path  by  which  our  people  may  come  into 
that  intimate  association  with  nature  which  makes  it  a 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       381 

productive  power,  and  at  the  same  time  preserve  that 
literary  culture  which  is  essential  to  the  best  literary 
art,  will  do  them  a  service  second  only  to  that  which 
Bacon  rendered  to  mankind.  For  if  I  have  any  con 
viction  deeper  and  more  constant  than  another  respect 
ing  the  causes  of  our  literary  sterility,  it  is  this :  that 
poets  and  people  are  "  moving  about  in  worlds  not 
realized,"  feeding  on  the  husks  of  literature,  without 
understanding  that  books  are  valuable  chiefly  as  the 
repositories  of  thought  wider  and  more  profound  than 
our  own,  and  vital  only  when  verified  by  ourselves ; 
or  that  nature  becomes  the  power  of  God  in  man  only 
when  presented  so  as  to  bring  into  their  true  relations 
the  soul  that  is  Nature  and  the  soul  that  is  Man. 

To  bring  this  to  pass  with  ourselves  may  be  more 
difficult  than  for  a  people  that  were  young  when  the 
world  was  young.  It  may  be  that  we  must  submit  to 
the  primitive  conditions  of  literary  success.  If  an 
apprenticeship  to  Nature  is  indispensable,  it  may  be 
that  as  Garcia  required  of  his  pupils  a  year's  practice 
of  the  scale,  so  of  us,  before  entering  upon  an  art 
which  is  the  highest  and  most  difficult,  may  be  re 
quired  a  description  of  the  simplest  flower  that  grows. 
It  seems  to  me,  that  on  the  recognition  of  the  fore 
going  conditions  and  conformity  to  their  requirements 
—  of  which  I  see  signs  —  depends  the  future  of  our 
imaginative  literature,  and  something  more !  There 
is  promise  of  better  things  to  come,  and  already  some 
thing  of  performance.  Who  but  one  that  had  slept 
with  his  face  to  the  stars  could  have  written  this  ? 

"  I  see  before  me  now  a  traveling  army  halting ; 

Below,  a  fertile  valley,  spread  with  barns  and  the  orchards  of  sum 
mer  ; 

Behind,  the  terraced  sides  of  a  mountain,  abrupt  in  places,  rising 
high, 


382        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

Broken  with  rocks,  with  clinging  cedars,  with  tall  shapes   dingily 


The  numerous  camp-fires  scattered  near  and  far,  some  away  up  on  the 
mountain ; 

The  shadowy  forms  of  men  and  horses,  looming,  large-sized,  flicker 
ing1, 

And  over  all,  the  sky  —  the  sky !  far,  far  out  of  reach,  studded  with 
the  eternal  stars." 

I  lived  four  years  at  Hanover,  blind,  absolutely 
blind,  to  scenery  as  fair  in  its  way  as  my  eyes  ever 
rested  on  in  any  land,  —  and  so  did  others,  —  even 
after  we  had  become  keenly  alive  to  the  literary  value 
of  poetry,  which  drew  its  inspiration,  its  vitality,  and 
its  truth  directly  from  nature. 

I  believe,  therefore,  that  the  love  of  nature,  intelli 
gent,  not  born  of  mere  wonder,  as  in  children  and  in 
primitive  races,  objective,  as  implying  familiarity  with 
her  forms  and  manifestations,  and  subjective,  as  find 
ing  her  responsive,  in  her  moods  and  S}^mbols,  to 
spiritual  aspirations,  is  relatively  a  late  development 
even  in  those  races  and  individuals  in  which  it  is  ever 
developed.  Is  it  the  basis  of  Teutonic  literature  ? 
The  Greeks  do  not  appear  to  have  possessed  it.  Their 
abounding  vitality  informed  nature  with  their  own 
personality.  They  gave  much  to  her,  but  seemed 
incapable  of  receiving  anything  from  her.  They  lived 
with  nature  under  the  open  sky ;  were  acquainted  with 
earth,  and  sea,  and  mountains ;  with  stars,  and  planets, 
and  the  sun.  The  Teuton,  on  the  other  hand,  knew 
nature  in  her  haunts.  If  English  literature  owes  its 
fancy  to  Celtic  blood  and  association,  its  characteristic 
life  comes  from  the  soil,  and  is  fresh  with  the  breath 
of  the  morning,  and  the  fragrance  of  wild  flowers, 
and  the  songs  of  many  birds,  and  the  idyllic  sweet 
ness  of  green  fields. 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       383 

Lest  what  I  have  said  of  myself,  and  of  those  with 
whom  I  associated  in  college  days,  should  be  laid  to 
the  account  of  exceptional  causes,  I  now  refer  to  later 
and  wider  observations. 

Returning  to  Hanover  on  the  centennial  of  1868,  I 
found  many  I  had  known  as  undergraduates  ;  and  if, 
amidst  congratulations,  inquiries,  and  replies,  there 
was  any  remark  so  general  that  it  seemed  to  be  uni 
versal,  it  was  this,  in  substance  :  "  The  old  place  is 
just  the  same.  But  what  a  beautiful  place  !  what 
scenery !  When  here  I  did  n't  think  much  about  it 
—  in  fact,  nothing !  "  And  to  verify  this  new  dis 
covery,  we  must  needs  go  to  the  heights  which  looked 
down  into  the  valley  to  the  southeast,  as  peaceful  in 
its  beauty  as  the  benediction  of  God  ;  or  that  to  the 
southwest,  with  Ascutney  in  the  distance,  recalling 
reminiscences  of  those  October  mornings  when  the 
Python,  the  mist-serpent  of  the  river,  lay  along  the 
Connecticut  until  Apollo  slew  him,  and  Earth  by 
night  renewed  —  him  the  deathless  ! 

In  assigning  the  development  of  an  intelligent  ap 
preciation  of  landscape  to  a  late  period  of  education, 
under  the  circumstances  above  related,  it  may  be  said 
that  I  generalize  from  too  narrow  a  basis  of  observa 
tion  ;  that  the  facts  amount  to  no  more  than  this  : 
that  young  men,  withdrawn  by  necessary  seclusion 
from  fellowship  with  nature,  are  insensible  to  her 
essential  qualities,  though  possibly  alive  to  her  power 
in  literature.  There  may  be  some  truth  in  the  obser 
vation,  but  I  have  reasons  for  the  broader  generaliza 
tion. 

Twenty-five  years  ago  I  passed  the  month  of  August 
at  a  place  of  resort  among  the  mountains.  The  com 
pany  gathered  there  was  somewhat  miscellaneous, 


384        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

made  up  chiefly  of  the  middle,  mercantile  class,  born 
and  reared  in  rural  New  England,  and  habitues  of 
the  place  summer  after  summer.  Nearly  every  fair 
afternoon,  in  parties  of  a  dozen,  we  made  excursions 
in  an  open  mountain  wagon,  among  the  hills,  through 
woods,  or  along  reaches  of  valley,  which  presented  a 
quickly  shifting  panorama  of  infinite  variety,  seldom 
repeating  itself  in  the  changing  lights,  shadows,  and 
cloud  forms.  Our  driver  was  a  middle-aged  country 
man,  by  whose  side  was  my  seat.  As  we  rode  along, 
suddenly  would  come  an  explosion  of  exclamations 
when  a  turn  in  the  road  brought  into  view  some  scene 
of  peculiar  beauty.  I  need  not  describe,  if  I  could, 
the  extravagance  of  gesture  or  speech  by  which  each 
expressed  delight.  The  driver  was  quick  to  catch  the 
view,  and  from  the  light  in  his  eyes  I  saw  that  he, 
too,  was  touched  by  the  beauty  of  the  scene.  "  Do 
you,"  I  asked,  "  care  for  that  which  seems  to  please 
the  people  behind  us  ?  "  "  Well,  'Squire,"  he  replied, 
after  a  moment's  hesitation,  "  I  was  born  in  a  little 
house  over  the  hills  there,  and  there  I  have  lived,  boy 
and  man,  more  than  thirty  years.  For  three  summers 
I  have  driven  this  team,  and  for  most  part  the  same 
folks.  When  I  first  began  to  take  'em  out  [with  a 
slight  gesture  over  his  shoulder],  and  see  'em  act  so, 
I  thought  they  was  the  biggest  set  of  fools  I  ever  see ; 
but  by'me  by  I  begun  to  look  myself,  and  now  [with 
a  suppressed  gulp]  I  guess  —  I  'm  —  about  as  big  a 
fool  as  any  of  'em  !  " 

Now  here  was  a  genuine  man,  a  son  of  the  soil, 
who,  with  average  poetic  sensibilities,  had  all  his  life 
dwelt  among  some  of  the  fairest  scenes  of  earth,  and 
had  but  lately  come  to  his  own.  Nor  was  there  any 
thing  peculiar  in  his  case.  No.  There  are  thou- 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       385 

sands  and  tens  of  thousands,  some,  like  him,  unlet 
tered,  and  others,  fascinated  by  the  gewgaws  of 
literature,  but  all  blind,  and  waiting  alike  for  the 
dispersion  of  mists  which  darken  their  eyes  to  what 
nature  would  gladly  reveal  to  those  who  will  truly 
"  fellowship  with  the  spirit  of  the  landscape." 

To  bring  this  about  should  be  the  aim  of  self -culture 
and  the  prime  design  of  general  education ;  and  its 
accomplishment  will  be  the  first  stage  in  the  develop 
ment  of  an  original  literature ! 

But  nature  has  not  yet  closed  her  account  with  us. 
Thus  far  she  has  revealed  herself  in  answer  to  our 
questionings,  sometimes  in  the  awe-inspiring  majesty 
of  her  elemental  forces,  sometimes  in  the  idyllic 
sweetness  of  green  fields  and  verdure  which  embowers 
hamlets  and  dim-discovered  spires,  and  sometimes  by 
touching  chords  which  respond  to  suggestions  of  some 
mysterious  relationship  between  us  and  herself. 

We  know  how  much  modern  poetry,  especially  that 
of  Wordsworth,  owes  to  an  impassioned  love  of  nature, 
and  to  the  assumption  which  attributes  sensation  to 
inanimate  objects ;  and  how  great  our  loss  would  be 
if  the  results  were  eliminated  from  poetic  literature. 
But  I  am  less  concerned  respecting  the  bounds  to 
poetic  license,  than  the  just  limitations,  as  matter  of 
self -culture,  to  our  "  fellowship  with  the  spirit  of  the 
landscape."  How  far  may  we  profitably  adopt  the 
theory,  which  must  at  least  be  regarded  as  ideal,  that 
represents  nature  as  desirous  of  understanding  us, 
and  of  coming  into  intelligent  sympathy  with  us,  as 
we  are  with  her?  Of  course  such  an  assumption 
lacks  any  basis  realizable  to  the  senses,  nor  is  it  other 
wise  susceptible  of  verification.  Nevertheless,  there 
is  an  ideal  view  of  nature  in  which  it  is  not  altogether 


386        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

fantastical  to  suppose  that  she  is  conscious  of  herself 
and  of  certain  spiritual  relations  to  us ;  and  there  are" 
those  who  recognize  the  moral  harmony  of  the  uni 
verse  only  in  the  belief  that  not  only  everything  that 
breathes,  but  also  everything  that  has  organized  life, 
and  even  things  as  remote  from  apparent  design  as 
those  which  go  to  form  what  we  call  natural  scen 
ery,  or 

"...  something-  far  more  deeply  interfused, 
Whose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting1  suns, 
A.nd  the  round  ocean  and  the  living1  air, 
And  the  blue  sky,  and  in  the  mind  of  man," 

have,  in  common  with  ourselves,  been  formed  by  the 
same  power,  and  subject  to  the  same  influences,  are 
thus  brought  into  relation  not  only  to  the  common 
source  of  being,  but  also,  through  that  common  rela 
tionship,  into  certain  undefined  but  not  wholly  un 
intelligent  relations  to  each  other. 

Now,  however  baseless  this  notion  may  be  in  phi 
losophy,  it  is  conceivable  at  least  in  poetry  and  may 
be  recognized  in  our  intercourse  with  nature.  It  is 
the  highest  in  that  fellowship  with  the  spirit  of  the 
landscape,  of  which  the  lowest  is  mere  wonder ;  and 
so  rich  and  satisfactory  beyond  all  antecedent  concep 
tion  are  the  results,  that  happy  is  he  who  can  truly 
say,  Respexit  tamen,  et  longo  post  tempore  venit. 

But  this  view  has  not  escaped  challenge  even  in 
respect  to  poetry.  Henry  Taylor,  the  author  of 
"  Philip  van  Artevelde,"  cautions  his  readers  against 
a  too  ready  acceptance  of  Wordsworth's  poetic  theory 
of  nature.  He  says :  "  The  vivacity  with  which  he 
[Wordsworth]  is  accustomed  to  apprehend  this  power 
of  inanimate  nature  over  the  human  mind  has  indeed 
led  him  in  some  cases,  we  venture  to  think,  too  far 


LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY       387 

...  in  his  poetical  licenses,  or  in  that  particular 
poetic  license  by  which  sensation  is  attributed  to  in 
animate  objects,  —  the  particular  feeling  which  they 
excite  in  the  spectator  being  ascribed  to  themselves  as 
if  they  were  sentient  beings.  Thus  we  find  in  the 
'  Intimations  of  Immortality,'  — 

'  The  moon  doth  with  delight 
Look  round  her  when  the  heavens  are  bare.' 

And  in  the  same  ode,  — 

*  Ye  fountains,  meadows,  hills,  and  groves, 
Think  not  of  any  severing  of  our  loves.'  " 

That  Wordsworth  was  the  founder  of  this  modern 
school  of  poetic  nature-sentiency  there  can  be  no 
doubt.  But  if  one  will  think  of  it  a  little,  he  will 
perceive  that  the  interpretation  of  the  interrelations 
between  man  and  nature,  as  presented  by  Words 
worth  and  his  followers,  does  not  materially  differ  as 
a  poetical  idea  from  that  which,  three  thousand  years 
ago,  possessed  the  souls  and  guided  the  pens  of  the 
Hebrew  poets,  that  wonderful  race  which  anticipated 
the  highest  reach  of  modern  spiritualized  thought,  and 
that  the  vital  power  of  the  best  modern  poetry,  as  well 
as  of  theirs,  is  derived  from  the  interfusion,  by  the 
imagination,  of  the  soul  that  is  in  man  and  the  soul 
that  is  in  nature. 

While  our  race  ancestors  were  in  their  lowest  estate 
of  intelligence,  before  the  Frank  had  crossed  the 
Rhine  or  the  wolf  had  suckled  Eomulus  and  Remus, 
—  while  the  Greeks,  at  their  best,  were  without  spir 
ituality, —  the  Hebrew,  rising  to  the  conception  of 
the  unity  of  all  created  things,  and  of  their  spiritual 
relations  to  each  other  and  to  their  common  Creator, 
could  say  more  loftily  than  Wordsworth,  more  loftily 
than  Milton,  — 


388        LANDSCAPE  IN  LIFE  AND  POETRY 

"  When  Israel  went  out  of  Egypt  .  .  .  the  sea  saw  it  and  fled ; 
Jordan  was  driven  back.  The  mountains  skipped  like  rams.  .  .  . 
What  ailed  thee,  0  thou  sea,  that  thou  fleddest  ?  Thou  Jordan,  that 
thou  wast  driven  back  ?  Ye  mountains,  that  ye  skipped  like  rams  ?  " 

Again :  — 

"  Mountains  and  hills,  fruitful  trees  and  cedars  .  .  .  kings  of  the 
earth,  and  all  people,  praise  ye  the  Lord." 

And  again  :  — 

"  Sing,  O  ye  heavens  .  .  .  shout,  ye  lower  parts  of  the  earth  ;  break 
forth  into  singing,  ye  mountains,  O  forest,  and  every  tree  therein." 

But  the  most  daring  and  the  most  successful  flight 
of  the  imagination  in  all  literature,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
was  reached  by  the  psalmist :  — 

"  Lift  up  your  heads,  O  ye  gates  ;  even  lift  them  up,  ye  everlasting 
doors  ;  and  the  King  of  glory  shall  come  in !  " 

If  those  who  were  privileged  with  access  to  the 
Divine  Mind  might,  unblamed,  use  language  which 
implies,  in  an  ideal  sense  at  least,  that  intelligent 
sympathy  pervades  all  the  works  of  His  hand ;  that 
not  nature  alone,  not  the  growing  trees,  not  the  run 
ning  rivers,  not  the  heavens  whose  clouds  take  on 
forms  of  life,  but  that  the  lifeless  marble  and  the  in 
sensate  brazen  doors  could  recognize  the  approaching 
God,  —  then  perhaps  we  need  not  scruple  with  Henry 
Taylor  to  assume  the  sentiency  of  nature,  either  as  an 
element  of  poetry,  or  as  an  aid  to  a  truer  "  fellowship 
with  the  spirit  of  the  landscape." 


THE  SCOPE   OF   A   COLLEGE   LIBRARY 


ADDRESS  AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL,  DART 
MOUTH  COLLEGE  LIBRARY,  JUNE  24,  1885 


ADDRESS 

AT  THE    DEDICATION  OF  WILSON    HALL,  DART 
MOUTH  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 


A  YEAR  ago  the  corner-stone  of  the  library  build 
ing  was  laid  with  appropriate  observances.  That 
event  was  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  the  college.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  a  work  long  contemplated  and 
often  deferred.  To-day  we  celebrate  its  completion 
and  dedicate  Wilson  Hall  to  its  intended  uses. 

Our  thanks  are  due  to  the  architect  whose  skill  has 
given  us  acceptable  results  for  library  economy,  and  a 
structure  of  just  proportions  to  which  time  will  add 
new  graces ;  to  the  master-builders  whose  fidelity  in 
construction  will  be  apparent  with  the  passing  years  ; 
and  to  the  committee  to  whose  foresight  and  superin 
tending  care  the  enterprise  owes  its  success.  And, 
above  all,  in  the  spirit  of  those  who  founded  this  insti 
tution,  would  we  devoutly  recognize  the  divine  favor 
manifested  to  us  in  this  as  in  all  generations. 

Although  I  wish  the  privilege  had  fallen  to  another, 
yet  most  gratefully  do  I  participate  in  the  dedication 
of  the  new  edifice.  It  is  now  five  and  forty  years 
since  I  first  came  to  this  seat  of  learning ;  nor  have 
I  ever  forgotten  —  I  never  can  forget  —  how  much  I 
owe  to  what  I  found  here,  —  able,  judicious,  and  faith 
ful  instructors ;  beloved  associates  whose  lives  have 
fulfilled  the  promise  of  their  robust  youth ;  books, 


392  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

abundant  compared  with  those  before  within  my 
reach ;  and  the  memories  of  those  great  men  who  had 
walked  these  grounds,  and  amidst  the  pure  and  serene 
influences  of  this  place  had  laid  the  foundations  of 
character  and  usefulness.  Five  and  forty  years  later 
I  stand  here  again.  But  my  eyes  seek  in  vain  for 
the  venerable  forms  which  I  once  knew.  Beloved 
associates  of  my  youth  are  here  no  longer.  Much  is 
changed,  but  much  remains.  The  venerable  halls  re 
main  ;  the  skies  are  the  same ;  still  flows  the  beauti 
ful  river,  —  still  stretches  the  glorious  landscape  away 
into  the  purple  distance. 

Among  the  privileges  of  my  college  days  I  grate 
fully  remember  the  libraries,  which  were  ample  for 
our  purposes.  We  could  not  indeed  have  verified 
Gibbon's  authorities,  nor  have  explored  any  subject 
exhaustively  in  original  sources.  But  the  books  we 
needed  were  to  be  found  either  in  the  society  libraries, 
the  college  library,  or  that  of  the  Northern  Academy. 
It  was  in  my  college  days  that  this  latter  institution 
was  evolved,  I  always  thought,  from  the  active  brain 
of  its  amiable  projector,  the  late  Dr.  William  Cogs 
well.  It  was  unobtrusively  located  in  a  lower  room 
of  Reed  Hall.  The  name  sounded  well,  and  our  pride 
in  it  considerably  exceeded  our  knowledge  of  it ;  for 
then,  as  ever,  Omne  ignotum  pro  magnifico.  With 
those  who  had  antiquarian  leanings  its  prestige  was 
augmented  by  the  possession  of  two  editions  of  John 
Eliot's  translation  of  the  Bible  into  the  Indian 
tongue  ;  but  neither  this  admirable  version  nor  the 
academy's  kindred  treasures  were  much  sought  for  by 
the  ingenuous  youth  of  my  time. 

When  some  one  defended  the  law  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  open  to  all,  "  so  is  the  London  Tavern," 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  393 

growled  Dr.  Johnson,  "  —  to  those  who  can  pay  the 
reckoning."  On  the  same  terms  the  college  library 
was  open  to  us.  But  I  fancy  the  accomplished  libra 
rian  found  his  duties  neither  arduous  nor  largely  re 
munerative. 

In  the  society  libraries,  however,  were  famous 
browsing  pastures  stretching  away  from  the  heathery 
Grampians  to  the  honeyed  Hymettus.  Free  even  to 
license,  the  privilege  was  seldom  abused,  and  is  of 
such  value  that  it  should  be  accorded,  when  practica 
ble,  even  at  the  risk  of  some  inconvenience.  Of  like 
value  was  that  other  privilege  of  carrying  away  to 
our  country  homes,  or  to  the  rural  districts  where  we 
taught  school,  a  trunkful  of  literature  for  the  long 
winter  evenings.  To  this  day  I  hear  the  stage-driver's 
good-natured  but  highly  objurgatory  epithets  lavished 
on  those  book-laden  trunks,  as  he  hoisted  them  to  the 
rack  ;  and  the  no  less  significant  exclamations  of  the 
youth  who  at  the  end  of  the  route  assisted  their  pro 
gress  to  the  schoolmaster's  chamber.  After  a  half 
century  of  such  usage,  no  one  could  reasonably  expect 
to  find  many  of  those  identical  volumes  on  the  shelves. 
Those  who  read  them  are  gone.  The  past  itself  is 
gone,  but  its  memories  and  its  influences  endure.  I 
wish  to  pay  a  tribute  of  sincere  respect  to  those  peri 
patetic  volumes.  They  did  a  useful  work.  They  en 
tered  into  the  rural  life  of  northern  New  England  and 
aroused  new  thoughts  and  new  purposes.  They  stimu 
lated  a  desire  for  a  broader  education  in  some  whose 
names  had  not  otherwise  honored  our  rolls;  and  in 
others  who  wandered  from  their  native  hills  and  be 
came  pioneers  of  civilization  by  the  great  lakes  and 
beyond  the  Mississippi.  Those  were  days  of  toil 
and  privation,  of  spare  and  homely  diet,  of  coarse  and 


394  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

scanty  raiment ;  but  they  covered  no  inconsiderable 
portion  of  that  period  which  measures  the  intellectual 
movement  of  our  New  England  society.  We  grate 
fully  remember  the  good  they  brought  to  us,  but  we 
cannot  wish  their  return. 

At  the  time  of  which  I  speak,  the  libraries  of  the 
United  Fraternity  and  of  the  Social  Friends  contained 
in  the  aggregate  about  fifteen  thousand  volumes.  As 
I  recall  these  collections,  they  fairly  represented  the 
tastes,  judgments,  and  needs  of  those  to  whom  they 
were  mainly  indebted  for  their  existence.  Each  class, 
divided  equally  between  the  two  societies,  made  a  dona 
tion  to  the  respective  libraries  in  its  sophomore  year  ; 
that  is,  in  that  year  they  raised  the  funds  with  which 
they  purchased  books.  These  books  were  held  for 
special  class  use  until  near  the  time  of  graduation  and 
then  were  given  to  the  society  libraries.  In  my  own 
class  I  was  one  of  the  committee  of  the  Socials  for  that 
business.  Two  of  us  were  selected  to  go  to  the  great 
city,  in  the  summer  vacation,  and  make  purchases  ; 
and  from  memoranda  made  at  the  time,  I  know  that 
the  hours  spent  in  making  our  selections  from  the  be 
wildering  riches  of  Little  &  Brown's  shelves  were 
considered  "  a  hard  day's  work."  Few  titles  of  our 
purchase  I  now  remember  ;  but  in  history  we  ranged 
from  the  Chronicles  of  Froissart  and  Monstrelet  to 
the  Memoirs  of  Vidocq ;  and  I  hope  that  my  associate, 
who  still  lives,  read  the  former  with  as  much  avidity 
as  I  devoured  the  latter. 

Returning  to  these  scenes  of  student  life  after  the 
lapse  of  many  years,  one  perceives  that  a  new  order 
has  begun.  The  grand  old  hall  remains  as  it  was  on 
that  first  day  when  its  faultless  proportions  fronted 
the  western  sky.  Would  that  its  perishable  materials 


DEDICATION  OF   WILSON  HALL  395 

might  be  transmuted  into  the  imperishable  marble, 
not  only  as  a  memorial  of  the  great  men  who  have 
lived  under  its  roof-tree,  but  also  of  the  forgotten 
architect  who  builded  better  than  he  knew. 

"  Tempera  mutantur,  pos  et  mutamur  in  illis." 

We  hail  the  new  order.  Not  far  from  the  site  to  which 
tradition  assigns  the  house  of  the  founder  and  first 
president,  rises  a  new  structure.  Its  exterior  is  pleas 
ing  and  satisfies,  I  am  told,  the  severe  judgment  of 
experts.  For  myself  I  will  say,  that  having  seen  in 
many  lands  edifices  with  which  it  may  fairly  be  com 
pared,  I  think  the  architect  should  be  willing  to  have 
his  name  inscribed  on  its  least  perishable  part,  to  take 
its  chance  against  the  assaults  of  time,  which  envies 
all  continuance  save  its  own. 

We  are  assured  that  Wilson  Hall  is  fire-proof. 
That  is  a  great  satisfaction ;  for  what  sad  associations 
those  words  suggest.  Do  we,  envying  the  old  world 
its  possessions  of  art  and  literature,  year  after  year, 
bring  them  to  these  shores  ;  and  then,  reminded  by 
their  presence  of  our  poverty  in  original  power,  do  we 
consume  them  from  the  face  of  the  earth  ?  These 
may  be  harsh  self-accusations  ;  but  those  which  are 
just — indifference  and  neglect  —  are  hardly  less  to 
our  discredit.  With  something  of  dismay  I  hear  of 
the  coming  among  us  of  the  first  folio  of  Shakespeare, 
or  of  one  of  the  incunabula,  or  of  the  priceless  trea 
sures  from  Nineveh,  Greece,  or  Italy,  lest  within  a  few 
years  we  learn,  as  so  often  has  been  the  case,  that  they 
no  lono-er  exist  save  as  smoke  and  ashes.  Gentlemen 

o 

of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  perhaps  the  destruction  of 
nothing  which  you  possess  would  cause  a  moment's 
pain  to  those  who  are  not  the  immediate  friends  of 
the  college  ;  but  the  knowledge  that  you  have  a  safe 


396  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

repository  for  what  is  worth  preserving  will  enrich 
you  a  hundredfold,  and  in  time  attract  to  Wilson 
Hall  treasures  the  loss  of  which  would  fill  the  world 
with  regret. 

The  arrangements  made  for  the  preservation  and 
use  of  books  seem  to  possess  every  advantage  which 
may  reasonably  be  expected ;  for  a  library  is  no  ex 
ception  to  the  general  law,  —  that  the  acceptance  of 
any  architectural  scheme  involves  a  compromise. 
Something  desirable  must  be  left  out,  and  something 
inconvenient  must  be  admitted.  The  central  stack, 
which  you  have  adopted,  finds  favor  as  the  most  eco 
nomical  arrangement  for  the  storing  of  a  large  library. 
To  this  you  have  wisely  added  ample  accommodations 
for  special  collections  as  well  as  for  the  convenience 
of  students. 

In  devising  the  plan  of  the  library  building,  you 
have  contemplated  its  indefinite  extension  to  meet  the 
growth  of  the  collections.  It  is  well.  With  the  years 
will  come  friends  who  will  add  to  your  funds  for  the 
purchase  of  books,  and  others  who,  from  the  abun 
dance  of  their  own  stores,  will  supply  the  deficiencies 
of  yours.  Time  and  friendship  and  filial  love  will  cre 
ate  a  great  library  here,  for  which  you  have  a  costly 
and  well-appointed  building. 

Too  long  have  I  delayed  the  expressions  of  your 
gratitude  to  the  memory  of  him  whose  generosity 
makes  us  all  debtors.  Alas,  that  our  words  cannot 
reach  the  ear  of  our  benefactor ;  that  he  cannot  be 
hold  the  result  of  his  beneficence  ;  that  he  cannot  see 
in  your  faces,  as  I  do,  the  grateful  sentiments  which 
overflow  your  hearts  !  But  from  all  that  I  learn  of  his 
character  he  would  have  found  less  satisfaction,  were 
he  now  present,  in  any  words  we  might  utter,  than  in 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  397 

the  consciousness  of  having  promoted  sound  learning ; 
and  less  desire  that  his  name  should  endure  for  ages 
on  yonder  hall,  that  from  that  hall  should  proceed  the 
influence  of  good  literature  enduring  with  the  ages, 
widening  with  the  ages,  and  moulding  the  characters 
of  all  who  came  within  its  reach. 

George  Francis  Wilson  was  not  a  son  of  the  college, 
but  his  name  will  ever  stand  high  among  its  benefac 
tors  as  the  Founder  of  Wilson  Hall. 

The  old  order  closes  ;  the  new  begins. 

"  Magnus  ab  integro  saeclorum  nascitur  ordo." 

Yesterday,  the  library  was  made  up  of  unrelated 
collections,  each  having  a  certain  value  for  college  or 
university  education.  To-day,  these  collections  become 
a  unit,  an  organism,  The  Library.1  It  is  no  longer 

1  The  flitting  of  the  library,  between  the  fourteenth  and  seven 
teenth  days  of  June  inclusive,  from  the  old  quarters  to  the  new,  was 
accomplished  by  an  act  of  filial  piety  which  deserves  commendation. 
I  learn  the  facts  from  an  estimable  lady  who  witnessed  it,  and  her  ac 
count  in  substance  is  as  follows  :  It  was  deemed  eminently  important 
that  the  library  should  be  transferred  to  Wilson  Hall  before  Com 
mencement.  But  unavoidable  delays  had  prevented  the  book-shelves 
from  being  in  readiness  till,  by  reason  of  the  annual  examinations, 
there  were  practically  but  four  days  left  in  which  to  make  the  trans 
fer.  The  president  accordingly  announced  to  the  assembled  students 
the  difficulty,  expressed  the  belief  that  it  could  be  overcome  by  a 
united  effort,  and  called  for  volunteers.  In  response  to  the  call  the 
whole  body  of  students  rose  to  their  feet.  A  day  was  then  announced 
for  each  class  ;  the  monitors  were  requested  to  divide  them  into  squads 
of  twelve,  assigning  two  hours  of  continuous  work  to  each  band,  and 
reporting  to  the  individuals  and  to  the  librarian.  The  college  carpenter 
was  directed  to  prepare  a  number  of  hand-barrows,  holding  as  many 
volumes  as  two  men  could  conveniently  carry.  The  Librarian  distrib 
uted  his  assistants  at  each  end  of  the  route,  to  direct  the  removal  and 
the  reception  of  the  books.  The  volumes  were  rapidly  dusted  as  they 
were  taken  from  the  shelves,  placed  in  the  hand-barrows  or  trays,  and 
for  four  days  these  trays  were  plying  between  the  buildings  like 
shuttles,  six  at  a  time,  from  morning  till  night.  A  plentiful  supply 
of  lemonade  in  both  buildings  relieved  the  thirst  of  hot  June  days ; 


398  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

in  lodgings  nor  living  at  sufferance  among  its  friends. 
It  has  a  home  of  its  own,  —  can  invite  company,  inter 
change  civilities,  and  recognize  the  comity  which  ex 
ists  between  the  guilds  of  literature.  Its  situation  is 
favorable.  It  is  surrounded  by  attractive  scenery. 
Every  circumstance  of  its  life  conduces  to  growth  and 
longevity.  Our  hopes  for  it  are  high  and  our  demands 
upon  it  will  be  rigorous.  Let  us  attempt  to  forecast 
its  future. 

With  few  exceptions  the  increase  of  the  library  will 
be  determined  by  general  rather  than  by  special  con 
siderations.  The  treasures  of  the  Vatican  flowed  to 
Rome  because  Rome  was  the  centre  of  religious 
thought  and  ecclesiastical  purpose.  The  collections 
of  the  Bibliotheque  Nation  ale  and  of  the  British  Mu 
seum  found  their  way  to  those  centres  of  cosmopolitan 
art,  science,  and  literature,  because  there  they  were 
needed.  This  accords  with  beneficent  law.  An  ac 
cumulation  of  books  brought  together  without  due 
relation  may  gratify  ostentation  but  subserves  no  use 
ful  purpose.  A  library,  whether  public  or  private, 
should  be  a  growth,  and  every  addition  to  it  should 
represent  an  intelligent  demand  and  supply  present 
or  prospective  needs.  Let  us  notice  a  few  of  these 
departments  that  ought  to  be  made  complete,  either 
from  inherent  propriety  or  in  recognition  of  some  dis 
tinctive  character  acquired  by  the  college  and  likely 
to  be  retained. 

Whatever  else  the  library  may  lack,  apart  from 
what  is  essential  to  college  work,  it  should  not  lack 
anything  which  relates  to  the  history  of  the  institution. 

the  work  was  carried  on  with  abundant  singing  and  merriment ;  and 
at  the  end  of  the  four  days  about  sixty  thousand  of  the  sixty-five 
thousand  volumes,  which  compose  the  library,  had  been  transferred. 


DEDICATION  OF   WILSON  HALL  399 

The  college  has  an  honorable  history  which  ought  to 
be  known  here.  In  some  room,  set  apart  for  the  pur 
pose,  should  be  found  the  memorials  of  the  college 
from  its  earliest  days  ;  the  biographies  of  its  founders 
and  patrons,  of  its  officers  and  students ;  pictorial 
illustrations  of  its  buildings  and  of  the  surrounding 
scenery  ;  every  work  written  by  its  graduates  ;  and, 
finally,  whatever  relates  to  the  beginning  and  progress 
of  an  institution  which  has  profoundly  influenced  the 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  history  of  New  England.  In 
neglected  garrets  are  manuscripts  of  great  value  for 
that  purpose.  Let  us  rescue  these  from  decay  and 
bring  them  hither.  Before  me  lies  a  mass  of  such 
papers  written  by,  or  to,  our  founder,  Dr.  Eleazar 
Wheelock.  From  these  I  have  learned  something  of 
the  labors,  trials,  and  privations  of  those  who  first  came 
to  this  wilderness,  and  something  of  their  devotion  to 
a  great  purpose.  I  have  brought  these  papers  with 
me  as  a  contribution  to  the  college  history,  hoping 
they  may  interest  others  as  they  have  interested  me. 
I  present  them  to  the  library. 

In  the  annals  of  the  college  are  to  be  found  exam 
ples  of  devotion  to  her  interests  which  should  inspire 
all  her  children.  When  her  great  son  was  called  to 
defend  her  life  threatened  by  parricidal  hands,  with 
that  thoroughness  and  precision  which  marked  all  his 
professional  and  public  work  he  examined  the  law 
and  the  evidence  of  the  cause  which  demanded  his 
advocacy.  And  so  did  Mason,  Smith,  and  Hopkin- 
son,  who  had  no  personal  relations  to  the  college. 
But  Mr.  Webster  was  her  son.  He  studied  her  his 
tory  until  those  first  days  lived  again.  His  imagina 
tion  transformed  the  soulless  body  corporate  —  the 
fiction  of  the  king's  prerogative  —  into  a  living  per- 


400  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

sonality,  the  object  of  his  filial  devotion,  the  beloved 
mother  whose  protection  called  forth  all  his  prowess 
and  enkindled  in  his  bosom  a  quenchless  love.  So 
will  it  ever  be  with  those  who  become  intimately  ac 
quainted  with  her  history ;  for  by  an  unchanging  law 
the  sentiments  and  affections  of  individuals,  no  less 
than  of  nations,  are  moulded  into  an  ideal  personality. 
Such  was  Pallas- Athene  to  art-loving  Greeks ;  such  to 
the  all-conquering  Romans  the  Capitoline  Jove. 

Let  us  gather,  then,  the  memorials  of  the  college 
into  one  repository  sacred  as  the  abode  of  the  dear 
and  venerable  mother.  No  one  will  enter  it  without 
reverence  nor  leave  it  without  new  devotion.  Its 
threshold  will  welcome  the  returning  son  however 
humble ;  and  its  lintel  will  be  lifted  up  that  the  most 
exalted  may  enter.  Nor  will  the  place  be  sacred  to 
those  alone,  the  graduates  of  the  college,  beneath 
whose  revisiting  footsteps  the  very  sods  become  quick 
ened.  For  when  our  great  brother  rescued  his  alma 
mater  from  the  conflict  of  parties  and  bore  her  on 
his  shoulders  to  the  citadel  of  the  Constitution,  he 
opened  wide  its  doors  to  every  sister  college  in  the 
land;  and  as  chance  or  rational  curiosity  leads  the 
feet  of  their  sons  to  this  place,  let  them  not  seek  in 
vain  for  every  memorial  of  the  great  conflict  or  of  the 
great  victory.  Let  this  room,  therefore,  contain  every 
pamphlet  called  forth  by  the  heated  controversy :  the 
hostile  legislation  in  its  authentic  records ;  the  corre 
spondence  which  relates  to  the  contest ;  the  later  dis 
cussions  and  decisions,  in  legal  or  legislative  forums, 
to  which  it  has  given  rise ;  and  finally,  all  those 
authorities  by  which  counsel  or  magistrate,  in  state  or 
national  tribunal,  sought  to  secure  or  avert  the  final 
judgment  of  the  court.  The  question  involved  in  this 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  401 

celebrated  case  was  one  of  constitutional  rather  than 
of  technical  law;  and  it  was  decided  on  principles 
within  the  comprehension  of  non-professional  intelli 
gence.  With  its  related  history  it  might  well  be 
made  the  subject  of  an  annual  essay,  the  preparation 
of  which  would  tend  to  stimulate  habits  of  original 
research  and  enkindle  the  devotion  of  undergraduates. 
To  such  a  proposed  collection  of  authorities  I  desire 
to  make  a  contribution.  In  his  great  argument  re 
ported  in  the  Dartmouth  College  Case,  a  copy  of 
which  you  have  fittingly  placed  under  the  corner-stone 
of  Wilson  Hall,  Daniel  Webster  cited  as  authority  the 
first  volume  of  Blackstone's  "  Commentaries."  The 
identical  volume  which  he  held  in  his  hand  for  that 
purpose,  I  now  hold  in  mine.  It  belongs  to  a  set  not 
without  interest  as  the  first  American  edition  of  that 
celebrated  work.  Daniel  Webster,  whose  autograph 
signature  is  found  upon  the  fly-leaf,  gave  it  to  his 
brother,  Ezekiel  Webster,  also  a  son  of  the  college, 
whose  handwriting  is  to  be  seen  on  a  small  slip  of 
paper  obviously  used  to  mark  a  page  for  reference. 

Having  brought  together  the  memorials  of  the  col 
lege  for  preservation  in  its  library,  the  growth  of  the 
collection  may  be  allowed  to  express  the  views  of  those 
who  contribute  to  its  funds,  and  of  inquirers  in  differ 
ent  fields  of  investigation.  How  widely  in  recent 
years  the  old  fields  have  been  extended  and  what  new 
fields  have  been  opened,  is  well  known.  The  product 
of  each  clamors  for  recognition ;  but  the  relative  im 
portance  of  the  several  departments  of  literature  and 
the  draft  which  each  should  make  on  your  resources 
may  be  wisely  left  to  the  decision  of  well-known  laws. 

In  all  departments  of  research  the  results  within 
the  last  fifty  years  are  amazing.  No  mind,  however 


402  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

capacious,  can  grasp  them  in  detail ;  nor  will  the  most 
far-reaching  presume  to  limit  their  progress.  But  it 
will  not  escape  observation  that  these  results  are  in 
a  great  measure  due  to  more  scientific  methods  of 
research  made  possible  by  the  existence  of  great  col 
lections  and  great  libraries. 

Within  recent  years  constitutional  history  has  been 
explored  in  original  sources,  and  its  field  has  been 
widened  so  as  to  include  all  those  nationalities  which 
in  any  degree  have  participated  in  the  general  move 
ment  of  organized  governments  in  the  direction  of 
popular  rights  regulated  by  fundamental  laws.  This 
is  largely  due  to  the  original  authorities  gathered  into 
great  libraries  and  made  accessible  to  students.  Such 
collections  not  only  answer  inquiries,  but  they  stimu 
late  inquirers ;  and,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  in  the 
sequel,  they  are  likely  to  have  a  profound  influence 
on  the  coming  literature  of  America.  And  as  I  deem 
this  a  subject  of  present  importance,  I  pass,  by  easy 
transition,  from  the  history  of  the  college  which  inter 
ests  us  here,  to  the  history  of  our  country  which 
interests  us  everywhere,  and  make  it  prominent  in 
this  address,  with  the  hope  that  I  may  successfully 
urge  the  equipment  of  your  library  for  its  most  ex 
haustive  study. 

The  formation  of  a  written  constitution  as  the  fun 
damental  law  of  the  United  States,  in  1787,  was, 
without  doubt,  an  epoch  in  the  history  of  constitu 
tional  government ;  but  it  was  not  the  origin  of  that 
form  of  government.  It  was  preceded  by  the  consti 
tutions  of  several  of  the  States,  and  notably  by  that 
of  Massachusetts,  in  1780,  from  which  some  features 
of  the  Federal  Constitution  were  copied.  Nor  was  the 
Massachusetts  instrument  essentially  more  than  the 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  403 

charter  of  William  and  Mary  changed  and  enlarged 
to  conform  to  the  circumstances  of  the  independent 
State  which,  in  revolutionary  times,  had  grown  out 
of  a  subject  province  of  England.  Provincial  char 
ters,  again,  were  based  upon  those  which  were  drafted 
for  the  colonies  in  the  days  of  Charles  I.,  upon  the 
general  principles  of  the  unwritten  constitution  of  our 
British  ancestors.  Thus  we  can  trace  constitutional 
government  back  to  our  English  home,  and  perhaps 
even  to  the  forests  of  Germany.  In  the  colonial 
period  the  government  of  our  ancestors  was  founded 
on  royal  charters ;  but  these  were  then  to  be  inter 
preted,  as  they  are  now  to  be  read,  in  the  light  of  the 
public  law  of  Europe  and  of  the  municipal  law  of 
England.  When  the  colonists  threw  off  their  alle 
giance  to  the  'crown  they  still  remained  subject  to  the 
public  law  of  Europe ;  and  they  found  it  convenient 
to  adhere  to  the  general  principles  of  the  municipal 
law  of  England.  Magna  Charta  and  the  Petition  of 
Right  they  undoubtedly  brought  with  them  in  the 
period  of  the  great  emigration ;  and  if  it  is  less  clear 
that  the  Habeas  Corpus  and  the  Bill  of  Rights,  later 
enactments  of  the  British  Parliament,  passed  proprio 
vigore  beyond  the  seas,  our  ancestors  laid  claim  to 
them,  if  not  by  virtue  of  their  relations  to  the  mother 
country,  at  least  as  analogues  of  rights  which  had 
grown  up  on  American  soil.  Consequently  the  public 
law  of  Europe  and  the  municipal  law  of  England  as 
they  were  interpreted  in  the  seventeenth  century,  to 
gether  with  the  great  declaratory  acts  and  the  con 
stitutional  history  of  England,  are  still  vital  to  us,  and 
so  will  remain  as  long  as  we  are  interested  in  consti 
tutional  government.  They  form  the  basis  of  our 
political  system,  and  will  acquire  new  importance  as 


404  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

we  approach  that  period  in  our  national  life  when  a 
denser  population  and  more  complicated  interests  will 
require  a  readjustment  of  the  rights  of  persons  and 
the  powers  of  government.  These  subjects  and  the 
questions  to  which  they  give  rise,  including  those 
institutions  which  indicate  our  common  origin  with 
Englishmen,  or  differentiate  the  administrative  sys 
tem  of  both  from  that  of  continental  Europe,  have 
received  much  attention  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
I  need  only  refer  to  the  writings  of  Hallam,  May, 
Stubbs,  Freeman,  Lecky,  and  Hall,  in  England,  of  De 
Tocqueville  and  Von  Hoist,  on  the  Continent,  and  to 
the  political  and  historical  publications  issued  from 
the  Johns  Hopkins  University  in  this  country.  Inter 
esting  and  valuable  as  the  results  of  these  studies  are, 
they  are  more  interesting  and  valuable  as  indicating 
the  application  of  scientific  methods  of  investigation 
to  historical  and  constitutional  questions.  Such  has 
been  the  advance  in  this  direction  that  Hallam's  judg 
ments  on  controverted  constitutional  points  are  no 
longer  accepted  as  final.  The  time  is  at  hand  when 
students  of  our  history  will  insist  upon  access  to  ori 
ginal  sources  of  information.  Too  long  have  we  been 
obliged  to  accept  the  inflamed  arguments  of  the  advo 
cate.  We  wish  to  recur  to  the  facts  on  which  the 
arguments  are  based.  We  shall  no  longer  remain 
satisfied  with  the  method  of  historical  composition  of 
which  Hume  affords  a  conspicuous  example ;  we  pre 
fer  that  of  which  Freeman  is  an  acknowledged  master. 
Nor  is  the  time  unfavorable.  Our  colonial  history 
has  been  enriched  by  materials  unknown  to  the  ear 
lier  writers,  and  foreign  archives  lately  closed  or  only 
partially  accessible  are  now  wide  open  to  the  student. 
A  spirit  of  candor  prevails,  and  there  are  indications 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  405 

that  much  of  our  history  will  be  rewritten  with  an  eye 
closer  to  essential  facts,  and  with  an  insight  which 
discerns  the  truth  through  the  mists  of  undiscrimi- 
nating  patriotism,  partisan  spirit,  and  sectarian  zeal. 
The  college  should  be  able  to  encourage  these  more 
rational  methods  of  historical  study  by  pointing  to 
an  alcove  in  Wilson  Hall  containing  those  original 
authorities  which  incite  the  desire  for  research  and 
afford  means  for  its  gratification. 

If  the  past  history  of  our  college  indicates  the  field 
of  its  future  usefulness,  we  shall  be  warranted  in 
making  the  amplest  provision  for  the  study  of  consti 
tutional  history.  It  may  not  have  taken  the  lead  in 
the  cultivation  of  belles  lettres,  nor  did  the  muse 

"  That  has  her  haunt  in  dale,  or  piny  mountain, 
Or  forest  by  slow  stream,  or  pebbly  spring," 

choose  here  her  dwelling  place.  We  have  not  filled 
this  northern  air  with  song.  But  in  public  and  muni 
cipal  law,  in  statesmanship  and  in  administration,  the 
graduates  of  this  college  have  a  most  honorable  record. 
Webster,  Woodbury,  Bartlett,  Chase,  Fletcher,  Parker, 
Choate,  Perley  —  what  names  are  these  ;  what  men 
were  those,  all  within  the  first  century  of  Dartmouth ! 
Here  they  laid  the  foundation  of  character.  Here 
they  began  the  superstructures.  Faithful  to  the  cur 
riculum  which  assumes  that  discipline,  rather  than 
promiscuous  reading,  is  the  chief  purpose  of  college 
life,  they  applied  themselves  to  prescribed  lines  of 
work,  and  yet  found  leisure  to  explore  the  constitu 
tional  history  of  their  country.  Nor  is  there  better 
reading  for  the  prospective  citizen  —  public  or  private 
—  than  the  history  of  the  race  which  more  than  any 
other  has  developed  constitutional  government.  That 
history  should  be  known  both  in  its  great  epochs  and 


406  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

in  the  causes,  immediate  or  remote,  which  led  to  them. 
I  think,  however,  that  it  is  less  generally  known  than 
ancient  history  or  that  of  continental  Europe.  Neither 
our  own  history  nor  that  of  England  seems  to  attract 
the  attention  of  young  men.  With  some  opportuni 
ties  for  learning  the  facts,  I  do  not  think  that  Hume, 
Hallam,  Sparks,  Hildreth,  or  Bancroft,  is  so  much 
read  as  Prescott,  Motley,  or  Parkman,  all  of  whom 
have  chosen  foreign  fields.  Macaulay  and  Fronde, 
engaged  on  any  subject,  attract  by  brilliancy  of  treat 
ment.  One  reason  for  this  lack  of  interest  in  our 
race  history  may  be  that  it  neither  stirs  the  blood  nor 
excites  the  imagination.  As  a  whole,  it  lacks  the 
heroic  element  which  fascinates.  In  episodes  it  does 
not  lack.  Richard  before  Acre,  or  in  great  battle 
with  Saladiu  for  the  Sepulchre,  Henry  V.  at  Agin- 
court  and  Nelson  in  the  Bay  of  Aboukir,  are  examples 
of  heroism ;  and  so  is  Wolfe  before  Quebec.  Welling 
ton's  campaigns  in  the  Pyrenees  afford  instances  of 
English  valor  ;  and  the  mangled,  but  unbroken,  squares 
at  Waterloo,  of  English  constancy.  Marlborough's 
battles  in  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession  were 
"famous  victories."  But  these  heroic  achievements 
were  on  foreign  soil.  They  touched  neither  the  roof- 
trees  nor  the  hearth-stones  of  our  English  race.  They 
count  for  little  either  in  the  world's  progress  or  in 
our  own. 

But  with  what  breathless  attention  do  we  read  of 
the  Three  Hundred  who  saved  the  civilization  of 
Greece ;  or  of  their  varying  fortunes  when  Rome  and 
Carthage  contended  for  the  domination  of  the  world  ; 
or  of  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire  when  art, 
science,  and  literature,  frightened  from  their  haunts 
by  barbaric  hordes,  groped  in  darkness  for  a  thou- 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  407 

sand  years ;  or  of  the  last  of  his  hundred  battles  when 
the  Great  Captain  staked  his  empire  on  the  final 
charge  of  the  Old  Guard,  and  lost.  Those  were  great 
events  —  those  battles  of  heroes  and  demi-gods.  They 
affected  the  fortunes  of  nations  and  of  races.  Their 
narration  entrances  us.  But  unless  we  misread  the 
destiny  of  our  English  race  to  impress  the  world  with 
its  laws,  language,  and  civilization,  I  ask  your  judg 
ment  whether  Magna  Charta,  the  Petition  of  Right, 
the  Bill  of  Rights,  the  Habeas  Corpus,  and  the  De 
claration  of  Independence,  as  a  series  of  events  affect 
ing  the  rights  of  man  and  leading  up  to  constitutional 
government,  have  been  exceeded  in  importance  by 
any  events,  or  by  any  series  of  events,  the  work  of 
human  hands,  in  recorded  history?  They  were  at 
least  of  transcendent  importance,  since  to  us,  and  to 
fifty  millions  of  our  fellow-citizens,  they  are  the  bul 
warks  of  liberty. 

The  importance  of  these  events  does  not  diminish 
as  they  come  nearer  to  our  own  times.  Through  the 
ages  great  words  have  been  spoken.  Scholars  still 
delight  in  the  ideal  republic  of  Plato.  In  almost 
every  department  of  polite  learning  Aristotle  still 
instructs.  Bacon  gave  new  rules  to  induction,  and 
Newton  announced  the  subjection  of  the  planets  to 
law.  But  it  was  reserved  for  Jefferson  first  to  speak 
the  word  which  caught  the  ear  of  humanity,  —  the 
word  which  men,  from  the  beginning,  with  up-turned, 
despairing  faces,  had  been  listening  to  hear :  that  they 
were  created  equal;  that  they  were  endowed  with 
rights  inalienable ;  that  life,  and  liberty,  and  the  pur 
suit  of  happiness  were  theirs,  —  words,  the  grandest, 
the  most  momentous,  that  ever  fell  from  human  lips. 
But  whence  came  those  words  which  startled  the  dull 


408  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

ear  of  the  eighteenth  century  ?  Shall  we  find  them 
in  the  Contrat  Social,  or  did  they  fall  from  the  lips 
of  Wythe,  Lee,  or  Henry,  in  the  Virginia  Assembly  ? 
Were  they  merely  the  felicitous  phrasing  of  the  senti 
ments  promulgated  by  Otis,  or  either  Adams  ;  or  were 
they  the  concentrated  expression  of  a  thousand  years 
of  English  thought  and  purpose  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic  ?  Students  should  find  in  Wilson  Hall  the 
answer  to  these  questions ;  asked  not  in  the  spirit  of 
"  notes  and  queries,"  but  with  something  of  the  awe 
with  which  we  question  the  destiny  of  man.  For 
whether  true  or  false,  words  have  seldom  been  fol 
lowed  by  such  tremendous  consequences.  In  the 
generation  of  their  utterance  they  nerved  the  hearts 
of  those  who  trod  the  blood-stained  snows  of  Jersey 
and  stormed  the  redoubts  at  Yorktown.  In  the  revo 
lution  which  overthrew  the  oldest  dynasty  of  Europe 
and  deluged  France  with  blood,  their  appalling  ana 
logues  were  "  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity."  In  our 
own  day  they  inspired  Garrison,  Sumner,  and  Lincoln, 
whose  shibboleth  they  were,  in  the  conflict  which  broke 
the  last  slave-shackle  in  Anglo-Saxon  lands.  Nor  is 
their  force  yet  spent.  They  are  as  vital  as  when 
uttered  in  Independence  Hall,  or  proclaimed  at  the 
head  of  the  army.  They  are  the  life  of  those  politi 
cal  and  social  portents  in  our  sky  which  threaten  the 
peace  of  the  generation  of  young  men  who  leave  these 
seats  to-morrow. 

Jefferson's  words  are  connected  in  clear  sequence 
with  every  important  event  in  the  constitutional  his 
tory  of  our  English  race  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic  ; 
and  by  that  history,  so  far  as  it  records  the  essential 
qualities  of  the  race,  their  truth  and  applicability  to 
practical  government  are  to  be  determined.  The 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  409 

popular  belief  seems  to  be  that  the  truth  of  the  Great 
Declaration  is  a  domestic  discovery,  and  that  on 
American  soil  it  finds  its  sole  expression  in  govern 
ment.  This  is  not  altogether  so.  The  facts  are  more 
nearly  these  :  that  the  American  Revolution  was  a 
movement  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  to  which  race 
our  Revolutionary  ancestors  mainly  belonged,  in  the 
direction  of  natural  liberty  regulated  by  law;  that 
it  acquired  new  impetus  in  the  reign  of  James  L,  and 
continued  after  the  great  Puritan  emigration  to  these 
shores,  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  with  nearly 
equal  momentum ;  and  that  every  advance  on  either 
side  had  its  equivalent  on  the  other,  until,  in  both 
countries,  civil  and  ecclesiastical  liberty  were  firmly 
established.  If  this  seems  a  paradox,  let  me  indulge 
in  paradoxes  on  vital  themes,  if  thereby  may  be 
stimulated  a  purpose  to  place  in  Wilson  Hall  the 
means  of  their  disproof  or  verification.  A  brief  ex 
planation,  however,  is  required.  England  in  the  days 
of  Elizabeth  lived  under  a  sovereign  who,  with  great 
personal  popularity  and  inherited  prerogatives,  was 
nearly  absolute  ;  but  her  successor,  lacking  popularity, 
found  it  impossible  to  repel  assaults  on  his  royal  priv 
ileges ;  and  these  assaults,  continued  with  un inter 
mitted  diligence  for  more  than  two  centuries,  have  so 
reduced  the  authority  of  the  crown  that  now  it  is 
less  than  that  which  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  voluntarily  conferred  upon  their  chief  magistrate. 
A  similar  change  has  taken  place  in  the  distribution 
of  the  legislative  powers.  The  veto  of  the  crown  is 
merely  nominal,  and  the  coordinate  functions  of  legis 
lation  have  been  engrossed  by  the  two  Houses  of  Par 
liament. 

At  first  they  were  exercised   preponderatingly  by 


410  DEDICATION  OF   WILSON  HALL 

the  Lords;  but  to-day  we  notice  the  singular  fact, 
that  while  our  conservative  Senate  seems  to  be 
strengthening  its  legislative  power  and  influence,  in 
England  the  power  of  the  House  of  Lords  has  steadily 
declined  until  the  authority  of  the  government  is  cen 
tred,  directly  or  indirectly,  in  the  Commons  as  the 
immediate  representatives  of  the  people.  It  is  also 
noticeable  that  while  the  people  of  the  United  States 
have  limited  their  immediate  power  by  written  con 
stitutions,  the  people  of  England  not  thus  trammeled, 
have  through  their  representatives,  practically  unre 
stricted  authority  in  all  legislative  affairs.  I  venture 
to  predict  that  this  phase  of  constitutional  govern 
ment  will,  in  the  near  future,  challenge  scrutiny  on 
both  sides  of  the  water,  and  lead  to  results  not  now  to 
be  contemplated  with  equanimity. 

We  rejoice  in  the  prosperity  of  our  race.  In  the 
home  which  it  has  occupied  for  a  thousand  years  it 
has  founded  an  empire  the  most  powerful  of  modern 
times.  It  has  colonized  a  continent  here  in  the  west, 
our  home,  which  sets  no  bounds  to  its  aspirations. 
From  its  prolific  loins  have  gone  forth  the  subjects  of 
a  new  empire  in  the  far  off  southern  ocean  which  will 
dominate  that  section  of  the  world.  It  is  an  aggres 
sive  race.  It  evidently  contemplates  as  its  mission 
the  freedom  of  man  and  the  establishment  of  consti 
tutional  governments.  The  parent  stock  shows  no 
loss  of  vitality ;  the  transplanted  stock,  no  degeneracy. 
We  have  lost  neither  the  instincts  nor  the  traditions 
of  our  race  ;  and  when  the  time  comes,  as  it  inevitably 
will  come,  that  its  seat  of  empire  is  transferred  to  the 
west,  we  shall  take  up  its  work  and  carry  it  forward. 

In  preparation  for  this  work  let  us  study  before  all 
other  history  that  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race,  since  in 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  411 

that  race  is  found  the  germ  of  our  present  liberty  and 
the  promise  of  our  future  literature.  Its  history  on 
either  continent  is  our  history.  In  its  great  achieve 
ments  for  liberty  we  find  the  safeguards  of  our  own  ; 
in  its  mistakes,  our  warnings.  Its  later  as  well  as  its 
earlier  history  is  still  vital.  It  should  be  found  in 
Wilson  Hall  in  close  proximity  to  our  own.  Both 
should  be  studied  in  their  most  authentic  form.  To 
that  end,  we  need  the  British  statutes  from  Magna 
Charta  to  our  own  times  ;  the  Parliamentary  Journals 
of  both  houses  ;  the  collection  of  Debates  ;  the  publica 
tions  of  the  Record  Commissioners  ;  the  compilations 
of  parliamentary  history  and  the  volumes  of  treaties. 
By  the  side  of  these  sources  of  the  constitutional  his 
tory  of  England,  and  to  be  studied  with  them,  should 
be  found  the  corresponding  series  of  our  colonial 
papers,  as  well  as  those  of  the  state  and  general 
governments.  The  presence  of  such  a  collection  of 
original  authorities  as  I  have  indicated  would  excite 
curiosity  and  lead  to  their  study.  Correct  habits  of 
investigating  political  and  social  questions  would  be 
the  result,  and  a  sound  basis  laid  for  those  constitu 
tional  judgments  which  every  citizen  ought  to  form. 
In  English  history  as  well  as  in  our  own,  materials 
are  sometimes  overlooked  through  indolence,1  but  are 
oftener  perverted  by  prejudice.  If  one  would  learn 
how  frequently,  let  him  examine  controverted  ques 
tions  in  the  original  authorities,  and  then  compare  his 
results  with  those  reached  by  any  partisan  historian, 
no  matter  how  great  his  reputation  may  be.  After 
some  experience  of  this  method  of  investigation,  I 

1  No  one  would  charge  either  Robertson  or  Hallam  with  indolence  ; 
but  Arnold  (Lectures  on  Modern  History,  79)  has  pointed  out  a  serious 
error  into  which  both  have  fallen  by  trusting  second-hand  authority 
instead  of  exploring  original  sources. 


412  DEDICATION  OF   WILSON  HALL 

must  say  that  I  would  not  trust  the  narrative,  still  less 
the  opinions  of  any  one,  however  learned,  respecting 
the  causes  which  led  to  the  American  Revolution,  who 
had  not  studied  the  statutes,  journals,  and  parliamen 
tary  proceedings  of  Great  Britain,  so  far  as  they  relate 
to  American  affairs,  and  the  similar  authorities  of  our 
colonial  governments,  from  the  accession  of  Charles  I. 

The  value  of  this  method  of  studying  history  is  so 
obvious  that  authority  for  its  use  is  superfluous  ;  and 
yet  is  so  commonly  disregarded  that  I  will  add  au 
thority  to  reason.  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  who  has  done 
excellent  work  in  more  than  one  department  of  letters? 
says  :  "  Summary  histories,  such  as  those  of  Hume  and 
Gibbon,  though  not  to  be  altogether  dispensed  with, 
should  hardly  be  read  in  abundance.  They  are  use 
ful  as  giving  a  framework  of  general  knowledge,  into 
which  particular  knowledge  may  be  fitted.  .  .  .  Lord 
Stafford's  dispatches  and  the  Clarendon  state  papers 
will  be  studied  with  more  profit  to  a  statesman  than 
any  history  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I. ;  and  it  is  the 
materials  for  histories  rather  than  histories  them 
selves  which,  being  judiciously  selected,  should  be 
presented  to  the  perusal  of  the  pupil."  1 

Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  also  says :  "  Another  class  of 
documents,  certainly  of  no  less  importance  [than  trea 
ties],  yet  much  less  frequently  referred  to  by  popular 
historians,  consists  of  statutes,  ordinances,  proclama 
tions,  acts,  or  by  whatever  various  names  the  laws 
of  each  particular  period  happen  to  be  designated. 
That  the  Statute  Book  has  not  been  more  frequently 
referred  to  by  writers  on  English  history  has  always 
seemed  to  me  matter  of  surprise."  2 

1  The  Statesman,  3. 

2  Lectures  on  Modern  History,  71. 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  413 

It  has  been  my  purpose  thus  far  to  insist  that  any 
library  connected  with  an  educational  institution 
should  bring  within  reach  of  its  students  everything1 
which  illustrates  its  history,  and  everything,  near  or 
remote,  which  throws  light  upon  the  political  or  con 
stitutional  history  of  their  own  country.  Further 
than  that  I  do  not  presume  to  go.  At  that  point  I 
recognize  the  fact  that  a  library  has  purposes  of  its 
own  apart  from  those  entertained  by  the  institution 
with  which  it  is  connected.  It  is  an  educational  in 
stitution  ;  it  is  a  university  in  itself. 

By  not  sufficiently  attending  to  this  fact  erroneous 
notions  as  to  the  functions  of  a  college  library  have 
prevailed  in  very  respectable  quarters.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  question  is  not  whether  in  the  great  cen 
tres  of  art,  science,  and  literature,  should  be  formed 
collections,  museums,  and  libraries  capable  of  answer 
ing,  so  far  as  such  collections  can  answer,  every  ques 
tion  which  arises  in  any  department  of  human  thought, 
and  of  affording  in  the  most  effective  way  every  aid 
desired  by  those  who  repair  to  them  ;  but  whether,  in 
an  institution  designed  to  meet  a  local  necessity  of 
education,  and  neither  a  centre  of  general  culture,  nor 
likely  to  become  such,  there  should  be  gathered  and 
maintained  at  great  cost  and  at  the  expense  of  other 
departments  of  undeniable  usefulness,  a  great  library 
to  which  no  one  outside  the  institution  will  ever  resort, 
and  no  one  within  it  can  possibly  use  to  advantage. 
For,  so  proceeds  the  argument,  the  books  required  by 
any  student  in  his  college  course  are  few,  and  mainly 
such  as  relate  to  the  class  work  in  hand ;  and  it  is  un 
wise  to  offer  inducements  to  miscellaneous  reading, 
since  it  is  noticeable  that  those  students  who  give  to 
prescribed  studies  only  such  attention  as  will  secure 


414  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

to  them  their  degrees,  and  devote  the  greater  part  of 
their  time  to  general  reading,  are,  as  graduates,  less 
well  fitted  to  enter  upon  professional  studies  or  to 
engage  in  their  life  work  than  those  who  adhere  more 
strictly  to  the  curriculum.  This  implies  an  utter  mis 
conception  of  the  uses  of  a  great  library  whether  con 
nected  with  a  college  or  standing  apart  from  it.  Even 
in  the  more  limited  conception  of  a  college  library,  I 
am  not  the  advocate  of  a  policy  which  would  have  re 
stricted  Daniel  Webster's  constitutional  studies  while 
an  undergraduate  to  the  traditional  cotton  pocket- 
handkerchief.  Arnold's  advice  to  the  Oxford  students 
is  more  sensible  :  "I  cannot  indeed  too  earnestly  ad 
vise  every  one  who  is  resident  in  the  university  to  seize 
this  golden  time  for  his  own  reading,  whilst  he  has  on 
the  one  hand  the  riches  of  our  libraries  at  his  com 
mand,  and  before  the  pressure  of  actual  life  has  come 
upon  him,  when  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  is  mostly 
out  of  the  question,  and  we  must  be  content  to  live 
upon  what  we  have  already  gained."  1 

But  were  it  a  practical  matter  requiring  immediate 
settlement,  I  should  relegate  this  subject  to  those  who 
determine  the  character  of  the  instruction  imparted 
here,  and  regulate  the  growth  of  the  library.  For  my 
own  part  I  look  upon  great  libraries  from  a  profes 
sional  standpoint.  I  believe  in  them  as  workshops, 
and  as  legitimate  equally  for  the  undergraduate  as 
for  the  professional  man  of  letters  or  of  science.  Of 
course  each  must  select  his  proper  bench  and  use 
his  proper  tools.  A  college  library  will  be  essentially 
a  growth  representing  the  necessities  of  successive 
classes,  enlarged  by  the  advance  of  science.  Nor  will 
the  increase  of  the  new  invalidate  the  usefulness  of 

1  Lectures  on  Modern  History,  69. 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  415 

the  old.  Its  literature  at  least  remains.  Milton  lived 
when  the  old  astronomy  was  giving  place  to  the  new, 
and  was  perfectly  aware  of  the  fact ;  but  in  construct 
ing  the  ordonnance  of  his  great  epic  he  chose  to  see 
what  the  Chaldean  shepherds  saw,  instead  of  that 
which 

"  Through  optic  glass  the  Tuscan  artist  viewed 
At  ev'ning  from  the  top  of  Fe'sole 
Or  in  Valdarno." 

Besides  the  literary  interest  attaching  to  beliefs 
which  for  centuries  have  held  dominion  over  the 
minds  of  men,  it  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  errors 
of  a  discarded  system  are  indissolubly  associated  with 
the  truths  of  the  new.  No  library,  however  extensive, 
contains  much  that  is  without  value ;  for  what  is  re 
garded  as  worthless  may  possibly  be  of  account  in 
the  history  of  literature. 

I  think,  too,  that  I  can  see  another  benefit  resulting 
from  the  gathering  of  large  collections  of  books  at  the 
different  seats  of  education.  The  material  progress  of 
our  race  on  this  continent  is  without  parallel.  With 
a  great  past  we  are  assured  of  a  great  future.  This 
all  the  world  sees  and  admits.  It  also  concedes  to  us 
many  kinds  of  greatness  ;  but  it  does  not  concede  a 
great  literature.  Sometimes  this  thought  makes  us 
unhappy,  because  we  know  that  the  final  judgments 
of  literature  are  cosmopolitan,  and  from  them  lies  no 
appeal.  Let  us  examine  this  matter  with  candor  and 
good  temper.  It  is  said  that  we  are  sprung  from  a 
stock  which  has  produced  one  of  the  richest  known 
literatures,  —  that  we  are  generally  educated,  of  great 
capacity  for  affairs,  of  remarkable  inventive  faculty, 
evincing  vigorous  thought  in  jurisprudence,  statesman 
ship,  and  theology,  and  that  we  have  done  some  good 


416  DEDICATION  OF   WILSON  HALL 

work  in  various  departments  of  science ;  but  that  we 
have  produced  no  literature  of  the  first  or  even  of  the 
second  class.  It  concedes  to  us  several  respectable 
poets,  historians,  novelists,  and  belles  lettres  scholars ; 
but  with  exasperating  insistence  adds  that,  with  few 
exceptions,  their  work  lacks  original  power,  shows  for 
eign  culture,  and  might  as  well  have  been  written  in 
Europe  as  in  America ;  that  as  a  whole  our  literature 
is  neither  copious  nor  rich,  but  on  the  contrary  thin 
and  poor ;  that  it  does  not  taste  of  the  soil,  and  is 
essentially  a  pale  reflection  of  English  thought  and 
feeling.  This,  though  a  foreign  judgment,  does  not 
differ  essentially  from  that  which  may  be  gathered 
from  American  sources. 

The  usual  reply  is  to  reiterate  the  well-known 
names  which  for  the  last  forty  years,  with  few  addi 
tions,  have  adorned  our  bead-roll  of  literary  fame 
with  the  further  observation  that  we  have  had  other 
work  to  do  than  writing  novels  and  poems.  I  do  not 
propose  to  reopen  the  question  on  the  old  ground. 
Unless  We  can  come  to  clearer  notions  as  to  the  cause 
of  our  sterility  in  imaginative  literature,  and  can  find 
a  remedy  for  it,  the  matter  is  hardly  worth  discussion. 
I  suppose  no  intelligent  American  regards  the  out 
come  of  our  literary  endeavor  with  entire  compla 
cency.  But  if  the  causes  of  our  literary  poverty  are 
not  permanent ;  if  new  influences  are  at  work,  pro 
mising  and  already  producing  better  results,  the  case 
is  not  hopeless.  For  my  own  part  I  believe  it  to  be 
full  of  encouragement.  Let  us  review  the  circum 
stances  which  thus  far  have  affected  us  unfavorably. 

In  the  preface  to  his  "  History  of  New  England," 
Dr.  Palfrey  estimated  in  1858  that  one  third  of  the 
people  then  in  the  United  States  were  descended  from 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  417 

the  twenty  thousand  Englishmen  who  came  to  New 
England  between  1620  and  1640.  Owing  to  obvious 
causes  the  bulk  of  the  imaginative  literature  of  Amer 
ica  has  been  produced  by  the  descendants  of  those 
emigrants.  Who  and  what,  then,  were  these  twenty 
thousand  Englishmen,  the  first  comers  to  this  New 
England  soil?  William  Stoughton,  the  stout  old  Puri 
tan  who  fiercely  antagonized  the  witches  in  1692, 
said :  "  God  sifted  a  whole  Nation  that  he  might  send 
choice  Grain  over  into  this  Wilderness."  l  Nothing 
can  be  more  true  or  more  germane  to  our  subject. 
God  sifted  out  all  the  poets  and  romancers,  and  all 
those  who  were  chiefly  men  of  letters.  Neither  Jon- 
son,  nor  Massinger,  nor  Ford ;  neither  the  blood  of 
Shakespeare,  nor  of  Marlowe,  nor  of  Spenser,  nor  of 
Sidney  ;  neither  the  Puritan  Milton,  nor  the  Puritan 
Marvel ;  neither  Francis  Bacon,  nor  Thomas  Browne, 
nor  Robert  Burton,  nor  Jeremy  Taylor  ;  nor  any  one 
of  less  grim  purpose  than  that  which  made  Crom 
well's  Ironsides  invincible,  and  brought  Charles  to 
the  block,  could  bear  the  strong  winnowing  of  God. 
Those  thought  worthy  were  compatriots  of  Pym  and 
Hampden,  of  Ireton  and  Vane  ;  co-religionists  of 
those  who  for  non-conformity  had  been  tried  as  by 
fire.  Of  such  were  the  first  emigrants  ;  men  to  sub 
due  a  wilderness  ;  to  found  an  empire ;  to  set  up 
altars  to  religion  ;  to  war  strenuously  for  civil  liberty ; 
but  not  the  people  Apollo  would  have  chosen  to  build 
a  seat  for  the  Muses.  They  were  the  men  for  their 
work  ;  but  God  had  not  called  them  to  write  poetry, 
and  the  law  of  heredity  has  been  manifested  in  their 
descendants.  That  there  was  no  deterioration  of  men 
tal  fibre  in  the  generations  of  the  eighteenth  century 
1  Election  Sermon,  1668,  p.  19. 


418  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

is  clear  from  the  vigor  of  their  religious  thought,  of 
which  Edwards,  Mayhew,  Chauncy,  and  Hopkins  are 
conspicuous  examples  ;  and  from  the  depth  of  their 
political  speculations,  in  which  Otis,  Hutchinson,  and 
the  Adamses  were  unsurpassed  on  either  side  of  the 
ocean.1 

Such  were  our  literary  progenitors  ;  and  such  were 
their  limitations.  Besides,  no  people  who  have  pro 
duced  an  original  literature  ever  encountered  such 
difficulties  as  beset  our  ancestors  when  they  reached 
these  New  England  shores.  From  a  soil  which  gen 
erously  responded  to  the  labors  of  husbandmen,  they 
came  to  a  land  as  barren  and  stubborn  as  any  on  the 
planet  within  the  temperate  zones.  From  a  climate 
singularly  favorable  to  animal  and  vegetable  life, 
where  out-door  existence  was  practicable  the  year 
round,  they  found  themselves  in  one  where  the  ex 
tremity  of  heat  was  no  less  severe  than  the  extremity 
of  cold,  and  six  months'  seclusion  from  the  weather 
was  necessary  for  comfortable  existence.  These  first 
comers  have  recorded  that  the  productive  power  of 
the  soil  was  substantially  exhausted,  even  with  the  fer 
tilizers  within  their  reach,  after  four  years  of  cultiva 
tion  ;  and  for  subsistence  they  were  obliged  to  betake 
themselves  to  the  sea,  or  forsake  the  coast  for  the 
more  fertile  intervales  of  the  interior,  where  they  were 
exposed  to  Indian  hostilities.  Had  the  consequences 

1  Dr.  Palfrey,  while  he  contends  that  there  was  no  degeneration  in 
the  first  indigenous  generations  of  New  Englanders,  admits  that  "  the 
presence  of  historical  objects,  and  that  habitual  contact  with  trans 
mitted  thoughts  and  feelings  which  local  associations  keep  alive,  pro 
vide  a  stimulating  education  for  the  mind,  which  it  cannot  forego 
without  some  disadvantage.  The  consummate  flowers  and  fruits  of 
a  high  civilization  seem  to  require  to  be  nurtured  by  roots  that  for  a 
long  time  have  been  penetrating  into  a  native  soil."  —  History  of  New 
England,  iii.  68. 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  419 

of  this  state  of  affairs  been  less  serious,  their  story 
would  be  ludicrous.  The  first  party  of  Puritans  came 
to  Massachusetts  under  Endicott  in  1628.  The  next 
year  Higginson  brought  over  a  reinforcement.  To 
encourage  those  in  England  who  were  meditating 
emigration,  he  wrote  an  account  of  things  as  he  found 
them.  He  said  that  the  land  about  Massachusetts 
Bay  "  is  as  fat  black  earth  as  can  be  seen  anywhere." 
Heaven  help  them  ;  they  had  mistaken  marsh  mud 
for  loam  !  They  thought  that  English  kine  would 
thrive  on  foul  meadow  grass !  In  praise  of  the  cli 
mate,  Higginson  wrote  that  "  a  sup  of  New  England's 
air  is  better  than  a  draught  of  old  England's  ale." 
Good,  simple  soul !  He  died  within  a  year  of  a  hectic 
fever  and  was  buried  under  six  feet  of  Salem  gravel. 
When  it  was  too  late  the  sad  truth  stared  them  in  the 
face.  Starvation  threatened  them  and  death  made 
constant  inroads  upon  their  number.  So  pitiable  was 
their  condition,  so  slender  were  their  chances  even  of 
ultimate  success,  that  the  wisest  of  their  English 
friends  advised  them  to  abandon  houses  and  lands 
and  seek  elsewhere  a  more  hospitable  clime  and  a 
more  fertile  soil.  They  remained,  but  at  fearful  cost. 
Nor  was  their  situation  in  other  respects  favorable 
to  the  production  of  an  original  literature,  or  for  the 
preservation  of  that  which  they  brought  with  them. 
The  natural  gravity  of  these  sifted  Puritans  was  made 
even  more  sombre  by  their  position.  They  were  far 
from  their  old  home,  still  the  object  of  their  yearning 
affections  though  filled  with  those  who  sought  their 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  subjection.  Behind  them  were 
a  thousand  leagues  of  stormy  ocean.  Before  them 
was  the  dark  illimitable  forest,  which  resounded  with 
midnight  cries  of  savage  beasts  and  of  no  less  savage 


420  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

men.  Well  might  they  hang  their  harps  upon  the 
willows.  The  wonder  is,  not  that  literature  lan 
guished,  but  that  civilization  did  not  die  out. 

Literature  is  a  growth.  Into  it  enter  the  soil,  cli 
mate,  and  conditions  upon  which  imagination  and 
fancy  depend.  But  our  English  race  had  no  youth 
on  this  soil.  Its  infancy  was  in  the  forests  of  Ger 
many.  Its  youth  was  in  the  heart  of  "  merrie  Eng 
land."  In  the  prime  of  its  manhood,  when  all  its 
faculties  were  strained  to  their  utmost  by  a  conflict 
with  civil  and  ecclesiastical  tyranny,  it  left  its  plea 
sant  homes  for  a  wilderness  where  no  English  spring 
smiled  between  the  frown  of  winter  and  the  too  fervid 
glances  of  summer ;  where  no  autumnal  gloaming  fed 
the  imagination  ;  where  neither  the  lark  in  the  mea 
dow  nor  the  linnet  in  the  copse  inspired  kindred 
song. 

With  some  mitigation  of  material  severities,  this 
state  of  things  continued  for  two  hundred  years  with 
its  depressing  influence  upon  imaginative  literature. 
Add  this  also  that,  from  the  restoration  of  Charles 
II.  to  the  peace  of  1783,  the  colonists  were  in  con 
stant  conflict  with  those  who  sought  to  subvert  their 
civil  and  ecclesiastical  privileges.  This  resistance  en 
grossed  their  faculties  of  mind  and  soul.  In  such  a 
situation  it  would  have  been  criminal,  as  they  thought, 
to  abandon  civil  and  religious  liberty  for  the  cultiva 
tion  of  literature.  The  necessary  results  followed. 
At  the  end  of  the  long  contest  they  established  lib 
erty,  made  excellent  laws  and  constitutions,  but  wrote 
indifferent  poetry. 

During  the  Eevolutionary  war,  the  colonies  suffered 
another  loss  which  has  not  been  sufficiently  noticed  in 
its  effect  upon  literature.  At  the  opening  of  that  con- 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  421 

flict  there  lived  in  the  colonies  a  class  of  cultivated 
men,  mainly  of  the  old  families,  who  had  been  on  the 
soil  from  the  first  emigration.  They  formed  and  led 
the  social  life  of  their  times,  and  from  them  might 
reasonably  have  been  expected  a  literature  which,  hav 
ing  its  roots  in  the  soil,  is  nourished  by  culture  and 
social  amenities.  In  several  departments  of  letters 
they  had  done  work  to  be  judged  respectable  by  any 
standard.  But  the  exigencies  of  the  Revolution  de 
manded  their  expatriation.  This  measure  was,  no 
doubt,  dictated  by  prudence  ;  but  the  loss  of  these 
people  was  felt  in  the  literature  which  followed  their 
departure.1 

Candor  requires  a  fair  consideration  of  the  facts 
that  have  been  alluded  to.  The  Puritans,  with  all 
their  great  qualities,  were  not  a  literary  people,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  that  phrase.  As  well  might  the 
world  have  expected  a  "  Paradise  Lost "  from  John 
Locke,  or  a  "  Midsummer  Night's  Dream  "  from  Rob 
ert  Boyle,  as  from  those  who  inaugurated  and  for  two 
centuries  maintained  the  Puritan  hierarchy  on  New 
England  soil.  But  now,  relieved,  though  but  recently, 
from  the  pressure  of  old  necessities,  our  branch  of  the 
race  may  be  expected  slowly  to  advance  on  the  line  of 
its  original  genius  and  produce  a  literature  worthy  of 
the  name.  Already  have  we  entered  upon  a  new 
order.  The  material  prosperity  of  the  people  is  as 
sured.  They  are  no  longer  environed  by  narrowing 
circumstances.  Civil  and  religious  liberty  are  free 
from  harassing  anxiety  \  and  within  this  generation 
the  people  have  come  to  feel  that  they  are  now  a 

1  In  consequence  of  the  Revolution,  20,000  Tories  went  to  Nova 
Scotia.  See,  too,  Dawson's  Handbook  for  the  Dominion  of  Canada, 
106. 


422  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

nation.  The  descendants  of  Englishmen  have  become 
indigenous  here.  Into  them  have  entered  the  sum 
mer's  heat  and  winter's  cold.  The  American  has 
acquired  a  character  of  his  own  and  is  fast  losing  his 
provincialism.  He  has  thoughts  and  feelings  which 
he  does  not  owe  to  his  insular  progenitors.  To  the  ori 
ginal  vigor  of  the  stock  have  been  added  qualities  due 
to  the  commingling  of  nationalities  ;  and  now  for  the 
first  time  in  our  history  I  think  we  may  look  for  a  lit 
erature  of  our  own.  If  its  sun  has  not  risen,  its  dawn 
appears,  and  there  are  stars  above  the  horizon.  A  lit 
erature  of  our  own.  Let  us  consider  what  that  im 
plies.  We  know  that  the  elemental  forces  are  the 
same  from  age  to  age,  and  that  the  phenomena  of  life, 
in  their  ceaseless  round,  reappear  to  successive  gener 
ations  of  men.  And  we  see,  even  in  the  least  produc 
tive  periods,  a  few  gifted  above  their  fellows  who  read 
these  mysteries  of  nature  and  of  life,  and  reveal  them 
anew  by  the  utterance  of  song  ;  but  these  utterances  are 
far  from  constituting  a  national  literature.  That  only 
comes  when  the  people  themselves  form  the  constitu 
ency  of  their  bards  and  prophets,  who  under  the  con 
ditions  of  art  give  expression  to  the  thoughts  and 
sentiments  of  a  nation.  This  period,  sooner  or  later, 
comes  to  every  great  people.  And  when  from  the 
force  of  commingling  thought  and  passion  the  up 
heaval  takes  place,  the  great  masters  of  literature, 
like  mountain  peaks,  appear  and  their  voice  is  heard 

"  Not  from  one  lone  cloud, 
But  every  mountain  now  hath  found  a  tongue." 

If  we  ask  what  form  our  literature  will  take,  and 
what  are  likely  to  be  the  most  potent  forces  in  its  pro 
duction,  we  must  consider  that  no  part  of  our  civiliza 
tion  is  indigenous.  Neither  the  political  nor  the  social 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  423 

system  of  which  we  are  parts  ;  neither  the  religion  we 
profess  nor  the  fundamental  laws  we  obey  ;  neither 
the  literature  we  read  nor  the  amenities  of  civilization 
which  make  life  tolerable,  had  their  origin  on  our  soil. 
They  are  exotics.  The  youth  of  the  race  and  its  cre 
ative  period  have  passed.  We  can  never  return  to 
the  days  in  which  primal  instincts  found  expression  in 
the  songs  and  fairy  tales  of  the  people  ;  never  again 
shall  we 

"  Have  sight  of  Proteus  rising1  from  the  sea, 
Or  hear  old  Triton  blow  his  wreathed  horn  ;  " 

nor  can  wre  expect  a  recurrence  of  those  influences 
which  produced  the  Elizabethan  dramatists. 

Our  coming  literature  therefore  will,  I  think,  be  in 
nature  of  a  renaissance  modified  by  new  conditions  of 
soil,  climate,  and  scenery,  but  finding  its  stimulating 
force  in  literature  itself.  It  will  be  not  unlike  the 
renaissance  in  Italy  when  the  exhumed  art  of  anti 
quity  acting  on  national  aptitudes  produced  results  of 
great  power  and  originality,  although  the  suggestion 
of  the  elder  art ;  when 

"  the  glory  that  was  Greece  " 

became 

"...  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome." 

By  the  law  of  heredity  the  basis  of  American  litera 
ture  must  be  the  literature  of  England,  into  which 
long  since  entered  the  rich  fancy  of  the  Irish  Celt  and 
the  picturesqueness  of  his  Scotch  kindred.  If  it 
shall  lack  the  luxuriance  of  British  literature,  it  will 
not  be  choked  by  its  weeds.  Already  soil  and  climate 
have  developed  in  us  a  finer  sense  of  form  and  color 
than  our  English  brethren  possess. 

The  exciting  force  of  our  literary  renaissance  will 
be  literature  —  mainly  our  British  literature  —  gath- 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


424  DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL 

ered  into  great  libraries,  and  thence  distilled  into  the 
hearts  and  brains  of  our  people  ;  for  literature  is  the 
only  form  of  art  in  its  finest  models  with  which  our 
people  can  live  in  that  familiar  association  which 
makes  it  a  productive  force.  We  are  remote  from 
the  masterpieces  of  plastic  and  pictorial  art.  The 
genius  of  the  Middle  Ages  enshrined  in  the  great 
cathedrals  of  Europe  will  never  inspire  us  ;  nor  will 
the  art  treasures  of  the  Vatican,  or  of  the  Capitol, 
or  of  the  national  galleries  of  Europe,  until  great 
political  and  social  convulsions  have  disrupted  gov 
ernments  and  society  in  that  hemisphere.  But  the  lit 
erary  art  of  the  world  may  be  ours.  Let  us  gather  it 
then  into  Wilson  Hall,  where,  stimulating  those  who 
come  hither,  descendants  of  a  master  race  in  litera 
ture,  it  may  have  some  influence  in  the  production  of 
a  literature  worthy  of  those  ancestors.  For  literature 
is  a  power  for  civilization.  More  completely  than 
either  of  the  sister  arts  it  gathers  together  and  ex 
presses  in  permanent  form  the  thoughts  and  feelings 
of  mankind.  It  has  the  world  for  its  province  and 
the  race  for  its  audience.  Other  forms  of  art  seek 
locality  and  provoke  the  assaults  of  Time.  Few  of 
the  race  ever  beheld  the  glories  of  either  Temple ;  but 
the  songs  of  the  Hebrew  poets  still  touch  the  heart  of 
humanity.  Karnac  and  Memphis  are  in  ruins  ;  but 
the  wisdom  of  the  Egyptians  has  gone  forth  into  all 
lands,  and  that  which  was  of  value  in  her  literature 
survives  and  will  write  the  epitaph  of  the  Pyramids. 
The  Parthenon  slowly  yields  to  the  destroyer.  Memo 
rials  of  buried  Troy  once  more  see  the  light  of  day, 
and  once  more  will  go  down  to  darkness,  but  the  song 
of  Homer  rises,  and  ever  will  rise,  over  the  world  as 
clear  and  as  strong  as  when  it  flowed  from  lips 


DEDICATION  OF  WILSON  HALL  425 

touched  with  immortality.  In  literature  is  the  con 
servation  of  force,  —  the  force  that  is  in  the  thinking 
brain  and  the  feeling  heart  of  a  nation.  It  never  dies. 
Its  form  may  perish,  but  its  soul  transmigrates  into 
other  forms. 

A  great  library  —  "  the  assembled  soul  of  all  that 
men  held  wise  "  —  is  the  sum  of  all  literature.  It  is 
more,  for  neither  its  mass  nor  its  power  is  to  be  mea 
sured  by  counting  its  volumes.  It  is  an  organism  in 
which  every  part  augments  the  vigor  of  every  other 
part  and  of  the  whole.  It  has  absorbed  famous  col 
lections  around  which  cluster  the  memories  of  illus 
trious  men  who  through  their  aid  have  enriched  liter 
ature  or  extended  the  domain  of  science. 

My  daily  life  is  passed  in  a  great  library.  I  seldom 
cross  its  threshold  without  feeling  that  I  am  in  the 
presence  of  a  conscious  personality.  I  am  persuaded 
that  it  has  purposes  of  its  own  ;  that  it  allures  the 
young  to  healthful  pleasures  —  itself  being  pleased; 
that  it  counsels  wisely  those  who  would  avoid  life's 
devious  paths ;  that  it  sympathizes  with  the  patient 
seekers  after  wisdom  ;  that  it  knows  the  song  the 
sirens  sang  and  tales  stranger  than  those  of  the  Ara 
bian  Nights.  It  is  wiser  than  all  the  living  by  the 
wisdom  of  all  that  are  dead  ;  and  never  satisfied  with 
the  wisdom  and  the  beauty  of  the  past,  it  seeks  the 
wisdom  and  beauty  that  now  are,  —  for  "day  unto 
day  uttereth  speech  and  night  unto  night  showeth 
knowledge  ;  "  and  though  the  heavens  are  old  and  the 
clouds  are  old,  in  the  passing  hour  are  cloud-forms 
and  sky-tints  before  unseen,  and  with  each  descending 
sun  new  stars  will  rise  upon  the  world. 

Such  is  a  great  library  ;  and  such,  as  the  years  roll 
on,  will  be  gathered  here  in  Wilson  Hall. 


THE  OLD   AND    THE    NEW   ORDER    IN 
NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  BROOKS  LIBRARY 

BUILDING.  AT  BRATTLEBOKoroH.  VERMONT, 

JAXTAKY  25,  1867 


ADDEESS 

AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  BROOKS  LIBRARY 
BUILDING 


THE  last  of  what  I  intended  to  say  to  you  this 
evening  was  written  the  night  before  Mr.  Brooks 
died.1  Could  I  have  foreseen  the  circumstances  of 
this  occasion,  my  address  would  have  been  different ; 
but,  with  the  omission  of  a  few  words,  and  with  a  few 
which  I  have  added,  I  must  ask  you  to  accept  it  as  it 
was  prepared. 

I  met  Mr.  Brooks  in  his  early  manhood,  and  have 
never  seen  him  since.  He  called  on  me  a  few  weeks 
ago,  while  I  was  away ;  and  I  looked  forward  to  this 
hour  when  we  should  renew  the  acquaintance  of  our 
youth  ;  but  it  was  otherwise  ordered. 

And  now  that  this  hour  has  corne,  it  quickens 
memories  of  days  long  ago,  and  of  other  friends,  few 
of  whom  remain.  It  is  more  than  forty  years  since 
here  at  Brattleborough,  before  the  County  Common 
School  Association,  I  presumed  to  speak  for  popular 
education  ;  and  here  to-day  once  more  I  attempt  to 
speak  011  the  same  subject,  but  not  to  the  same  audi 
ence.  Gone  are  the  old  familiar  faces ;  and  if  any 
hear  me  now  who  heard  me  then,  they  were  young 
when  I  was  young. 

1  George  J.  Brooks,  the  donor  of  the  Library  Building1,  died  sud 
denly  on  Thursday,  December  23,  1886,  a  few  days  before  the  time 
originally  fixed  for  its  dedication. 


430     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

To-day  one  more  is  added  to  free  public  libraries, 
—  no  new  thing  now,  indeed,  with  us,  or  in  Europe, 
or  in  that  great  empire  which  rises  in  Australasian 
seas.  Nevertheless,  the  dedication  of  a  free  library  is 
an  event  of  more  than  local  interest,  since  it  is  one, 
though  only  one,  of  those  events  which  indicate  the 
passing  away  of  an  old  order  of  things  and  the  com 
ing  in  of  a  new  order ;  and  it  is  the  going  out  of  the 
old,  with  the  loss  which  has  ensued,  and  the  coming 
in  of  the  new,  with  the  gain  we  expect  from  it,  of 
which  I  am  to  speak  to-night.  And  as  your  fathers 
and  mothers  were  my  friends,  and  some  of  you  were 
my  pupils,  I  am  sure  you  will  allow  me  to  preface 
what  I  have  to  say  with  some  grateful  reminiscences 
of  my  Brattleborough  life. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  1844,  a.  few  months  before 
graduating  at  Dartmouth  College,  that  I  came  to  this 
village  as  teacher  of  the  Central  School,  and  here  I 
remained  until  late  in  1846. 

For  one  whose  principal  object  in  teaching  was  to 
replenish  an  empty  purse  and  at  the  same  time  to 
review  college  classics  and  read  books  introductory 
to  the  study  of  law,  no  place  could  have  been  more 
eligible.  To  be  sure,  a  salary  of  four  hundred  a  year 
was  hardly  alluring,  even  in  those  days;  but  with 
respectable  table-board  at  nine  shillings  a  week,  and 
free  lodgings  over  the  bank  as  its  custodian,  the  days 
went  on,  though  not  riotously.  My  duties  were  com 
pact  ;  the  school  was  in  perfect  discipline,  and  its 
spirit  for  study  was  high.  I  had  only  to  go  forward 
in  paths  well  trodden  by  my  predecessor,  that  admir 
able  teacher,  Moses  Woolson.  Thus  passed  —  agree 
ably  I  am  sure,  and  I  hope  not  unprofitably  —  three 
years  of  my  life,  in  which  I  had,  I  suppose,  my  share 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     431 

of  a  teacher's  perplexities,  which  are  forgotten  now, 
since  memory  holds  only  the  glory  of  the  dream. 

There  may  have  been  another  place  on  this  planet 
more  desirable  as  a  residence  than  Brattleborough  in 
1844,  but  I  never  chanced  to  know  such.  Situated  in 
full  view  of  the  mountains,  watered  by  fine  streams, 
with  pure  air,  and  scenery  at  points  exceptionally 
charming,  for  a  hundred  years  it  had  been  the  abode 
of  men  eminent  at  the  bar  or  on  the  bench  or  in  the 
pulpit  or  in  affairs,  and  of  some  not  unknown  in  lit 
erature  ;  and  always  of  a  people  intelligent,  refined, 
and  rich  in  all  amenities.  It  was  the  centre  of  an 
active  but  not  noisy  trade.  Manufactures  flourished 
without  polluting  the  air  or  the  waters.  Thrift,  which 
brought  competence  but  no  overshadowing  fortunes, 
was  everywhere  apparent.  Its  leading  citizens  in 
business  or  in  the  professions  were  qualified  to  fill,  as 
some  went  forth  to  fill,  more  conspicuous  places  and  to 
deal  with  larger  affairs,  —  men  and  women  whose  so 
ciety  was  education,  and  to  imitate  whom  was  conduct 
and  manners  and  exemplary  life.  I  hardly  need  add 
that  institutions  of  religion,  of  education,  of  public 
and  social  affairs,  guided,  as  they  had  been  established, 
by  intelligence  and  moral  sense,  moved  harmoniously 
in  their  beneficent  courses. 

So  ran  the  stream  of  every-day  life  at  Brattle- 
borough  in  1844.  It  was  its  golden  age  ;  and  if,  like 
the  golden  age  everywhere,  it  had  its  shadows,  some 
times  its  very  gold  was  gilded,  —  for  in  the  summer 
came  visitors,  some  of  whom  were  people  of  distinc 
tion,  and  as  such  welcome,  and  doubly  welcome,  I 
fancy,  and  doubly  distinguished  in  our  eyes,  by  their 
unstinted  admiration  of  our  village.  Their  advent 
filled  the  hotels,  it  quickened  trade,  and  gladdened 


432     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

the  hearts  of  ingenuous  youth  who  gathered  wild- 
flowers  and  berries  in  remote  pastures.  Better  than 
all,  their  presence  added  to  that  indefinable  but  not 
less  real  wealth  which  comes  from  association  with 
those  who  had  written  for  the  instruction  of  the  peo 
ple  and  for  their  delight,  and  to  the  awakening  of 
expectations  concerning  the  literature  of  America. 
The  value  of  such  association  to  those  in  the  forma 
tive  period  of  life  is  not  likely  to  be  overestimated ; 
to  them  a  complete  man  or  woman  is  the  centre  of  a 
glory  which,  if  it  dazzles,  also  inspires.  Of  the  nota 
bles  here  before  my  day  I  knew  only  by  hearsay,  but 
some  of  the  later  comers  I  recollect ;  and  though  I 
had  no  personal  relations  with  any  of  them,  it  was  a 
great  thing,  as  I  still  think,  to  witness  daily  the  con 
duct  and  manners  and  to  hear  the  speech  of  those 
whose  works  were  the  outcome  of  our  national  life. 
Among  them  were  Catherine  E.  Beecher  and  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe ;  the  former,  as  a  great  teacher  and 
writer  of  useful  books,  stood  higher  in  public  estima 
tion  than  the  latter,  for  "  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  "  was 
then  unwritten.  And  so  was  the  "  Philosophy  of 
Shakespeare's  Plays  Unfolded  ;  "  nevertheless,  when 
Delia  Bacon  walked  our  streets,  she  drew  attention  as 
a  remarkable  woman.  Heralded  as  a  true  poet  by 
"  Voices  of  the  Night "  and  by  "  Ballads  and  other 
Poems,"  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow  occasionally 
came  among  us.  But  William  Henry  Channing,  the 
great  preacher,  was  the  most  impressive  personality. 
After  forty  years  I  still  see  the  light  in  his  eyes;  his 
wonderful  voice  thrills  me  yet,  and  to  this  day  I 
ponder  his  ethical  utterances.  I  once  saw  William 
Morris  Hunt.  It  must  have  been  when  he  came  here 
to  take  leave  of  his  relatives  just  before  going  to 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     433 

Diisseldorf ;  but  I  met  him  with  no  thought  that  in 
after  years  I  should  know  him  as  one  of  our  most 
eminent  artists.  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson,  a 
more  frequent  visitor  both  in  summer  and  in  winter, 
was  much  in  our  social  life,  and  even  then  gave 
promise  since  redeemed  by  the  production  of  some  of 
our  most  attractive  literature. 

Of  course,  none  of  my  pupils  were  in  any  way  dis« 
tinguished,  though  many  showed  character;  and  one 
now  is  among -the  foremost  of  our  pulpit  orators,  and 
another  second  to  none  of  American  sculptors.  But 
those 

"  Whose  flower  of  happiness  was  crost 
In  its  first  bud,  —  the  early,  loved  and  lost,"  — 

alas,  what  hearts  were  broken,  what  hopes  perished ! 

Such  thoughts  crowd  upon  me  as  I  return  to 
Brattleborough  after  a  long  absence  ;  but  I  have  not 
uttered  them  to  those  who  might  once  have  listened 
with  pleasure,  —  their  ears  are  cold  in  death,  —  nor 
to  provoke  to  filial  reverence  children  worthy  of  such 
parents.  No ;  my  purpose  is  quite  different.  I  wish 
you  to  see  a  typical  New  England  town  as  it  was  and 
as  it  lived  its  life  a  generation  ago,  in  contrast  with 
similar  communities  to-day ;  and  then  to  consider 
with  what  loss  and  under  what  conditions  and  by 
what  new  instrumentalities  we  must  carry  forward 
society  in  the  future.  I  think  it  will  appear  that  the 
characteristic  life  of  our  New  England  towns  under 
the  old  regime  was  less  in  the  completeness  and  effi 
ciency  of  their  local  institutions  than  in  the  strongly 
individualized  personality  of  their  representative  men 
and  women  ;  and  that  under  the  new  regime  the  order 
and  effectiveness  of  these  influences  are  changed,  — 
that  henceforth  persons  will  be  of  less  account,  and 


434     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

institutions  of  more  account ;  or  rather,  as  I  hope, 
that  the  influence  of  men  and  women  on  society,  in 
stead  of  being  lost  or  impaired,  will  be  felt  no  less 
powerfully  than  heretofore  through  institutions  made 
efficient  by  their  intervention. 

And  though  it  is  this  change,  with  the  new  obliga 
tion  it  implies,  that  immediately  interests  us,  and  to 
which  we  must  adjust  ourselves,  yet  we  shall  more 
clearly  understand  its  nature  if  we  regard  it  as  due  not 
solely  to  local  causes,  but  as  connected  with  causes 
which,  beginning  hundreds  of  years  ago,  have  at  length 
transformed  government,  science,  literature,  and  even 
theology,  so  that  they  are  quite  different  from  what 
they  were  some  forty  years  ago,  —  a  change  which 
divides  the  old  regime  from  the  new,  under  both  of 
which  some  of  us  have  lived,  and  in  it  have  witnessed 
perhaps  the  most  momentous  revolution  of  the  ages. 

If  life  elsewhere  was  more  splendid  than  in  our 
New  England  towns  as  they  were  forty  years  ago, 
nowhere  was  it  more  desirable.  To  what  elements,  to 
what  marshaling  and  conduct  of  their  forces,  and  to 
what  conditions  did  they  owe  their  characteristic  life 
and  its  rich  results?  Mainly,  no  doubt,  to  original 
qualities  in  the  stock,  —  its  industry,  steadfastness, 
intelligence,  and  ingrained  moral  sense,  —  and  some 
thing  to  the  circumstances  of  its  expatriation  from 
England ;  but  much  also  to  the  structure  of  society 
which  the  first  emigrants  brought  with  them. 

What,  then,  was  the  structure  of  English  society  at 
the  time  of  the  great  emigration  in  1630,  and  how  far 
did  it  reproduce  itself  on  American  soil  ?  The  Puri 
tans,  better  than  most  people,  will  bear  the  white  light 
of  truth.  They  do  not  need  the  glamour  of  romance, 
which  they  would  have  contemned  as  much  as  we 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     435 

ought.  Englishmen,  everywhere  and  always  strenu 
ous  asserters  of  liberty,  especially  their  own,  have 
inconsiderately  been  credited  with  an  equal  passion 
for  equality.  Such,  I  think,  has  never  been  the  case, 
not  even  with  their  descendants  in  America,  until 
within  the  last  fifty  years. 

On  its  native  soil  the  race  ranged  itself  in  civil  and 
ecclesiastical  orders  which  no  revolutions  have  effec 
tually  shaken  ;  and  as  Coleridge  said,  in  his  day  "  the 
rustic  whistled  with  equal  enthusiasm  '  God  save  the 
king,'  and  ;  Britons  never  shall  be  slaves.' "  This 
race  tendency,  specially  marked  in  Virginia,  with  its 
large  landed  proprietors,  its  law  of  entail  and  of 
primogeniture,  survived  Jefferson's  counterblast  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence,  and  even  the  aboli 
tion  of  those  laws  brought  about  mainly  through  his 
influence. 

This  observance  of  rank  and  this  facility  of  ad 
vancement  through  rank  and  family  prestige  have 
been  united  in  England,  quite  as  often  as  in  this 
country,  with  a  sense  of  fair  play  which  recognizes 
the  possessor  of  brains,  however  poor  in  estate  or  low 
in  the  social  scale,  provided,  as  Burke  said  of  him 
self,  he  shows  his  passport  at  every  stage. 

The  first  comers  to  New  England,  chiefly  middle- 
class  Englishmen,  brought  with  them  the  social  dis 
tinctions  of  English  society  so  far  as  represented  in 
their  own  number.  These  distinctions  were  manifest 
all  through  their  history,  and  have  been  finally  sup 
pressed  only  in  recent  times.  Till  then  one  who  had 
a  grandfather  was  facilitated  in  his  political  aspira 
tions  by  that  fact ;  but  now  it  is  quite  otherwise.  The 
American  Revolution  made  no  change;  that  was  a 
political,  not  a  social  revolt.  The  laws  admitting  non- 


436     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

church-members  to  the  franchise,  and  those  of  a  later 
period  which  abolished  primogeniture  and  divided 
property  among  all  the  children  of  an  intestate,  pro 
bably  had  more  influence  in  equalizing  the  condition 
of  people  in  Massachusetts  than  in  Virginia,  where 
landed  estates,  ample  when  divided,  maintained  sev 
eral  aristocratic  families  sprung  from  one.  But  in 
Massachusetts  the  ruling  force  after  the  Eevolution, 
perhaps  even  more  than  before,  was  personal  and  fam 
ily  prestige,  augmented  in  men  distinguished  in  the 
war,  or  who  traced  their  lineage  to  those  conspicuous 
in  colonial  or  provincial  governments. 

The  result,  as  every  one  knows  who  has  lived  under 
the  old  order,  and  as  no  one  else  can  fully  realize,  was 
that  the  substantial  governing  force  in  society  formed 
an  aristocracy  of  old  families,  including  the  parson, 
the  squire,  a  few  landed  proprietors,  and  the  village 
merchant.  There  were  party  divisions,  of  course  ;  but 
whichever  party  prevailed  at  the  polls,  its  aristocratic 
element  controlled  the  government.  So  sudden  and 
so  recent  was  the  transition  from  the  old  order  to  the 
new,  that  there  are  living  all  over  New  England  those 
who  can  name  the  last  old-regime  governor,  mayor,  or 
selectmen,  and  the  first  of  each,  after  the  people  came 
to  the  front  and  assumed  the  government;  and  yet 
the  people  then  hardly  understood,  and  it  is  doubtful 
whether  they  fully  understand  now,  the  nature  and 
consequences  of  the  revolution  they  have  inaugurated. 

This  change  was  more  marked  and  more  moment 
ous  in  New  England  than  elsewhere,  because  it  was 
simultaneous  with  a  disturbance  of  economic  condi 
tions  ;  and  when  it  took  place  a  vital  force  went  out 
of  society,  the  loss  of  which  is  felt  to-day,  and  will  be 
felt  until  it  shall  be  reincorporated,  as  doubtless  it 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     437 

can,  into  the  mass  of  those  forces  by  which  society 
henceforth  is  to  be  sustained  and  carried  forward. 
The  loss  was  serious ;  for  never  was  there  a  better 
aristocracy  or  one  more  competent  to  govern.  An 
aristocracy  it  is  true,  but  one  which  represented  intel 
ligence,  industry,  and  moral  sense  ;  devoted  to  the  pub 
lic  weal  and  to  the  interests  of  society ;  and  the  out 
come  of  whose  endeavors  is  manifest  when  the  old  New 
England  towns,  thus  governed,  are  contrasted  with 
modern  factory  villages,  —  with  their  crudeness,  their 
vulgarity,  their  disintegration  and  lack  of  governance. 
I  mean  no  invidious  distinction  between  the  old  and 
the  new.  I  note  the  decadence  of  personal  and  fam 
ily  influence,  and  its  consequences,  as  part  of  a  larger 
fact,  —  its  decadence  everywhere,  —  and  would  direct 
attention  thus  early  to  the  need  of  making  good 
this  loss  by  setting  up  in  these  towns  other  agencies, 
among  which  I  include  public  libraries,  and  by  re 
calling  to  an  active  participation  in  the  conduct  of 
these  new  instrumentalities  those  who  have  retired 
from  public  affairs. 

Were  this  revolution  confined  to  New  England,  it 
might  be  accounted  for  by  the  decline  of  agriculture, 
and  the  flocking  to  the  cities  of  young  men  who  for 
merly  remained  in  the  country  towns,  and  were  their 
best  society,  their  strength,  and  their  prosperity.  But 
there  must  have  been  other  causes ;  for  the  same  re 
volution  is  now  going  on  in  old  England  as  in  New 
England,  and  with  scarcely  less  rapidity  in  the  rich 
agricultural  West.  Everywhere  is  the  same  disposi 
tion  to  give  up  the  simple,  wholesome  life  of  the  coun 
try  for  the  excitements,  the  occasional  prizes,  and  the 
more  frequent  disappointments  of  the  cities. 

Deplore  this  as  we  may,  we  cannot  return  to  old 


438     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

ways  or  old  measures.  Arrest  the  movement;  let 
agriculture  become  as  remunerative  here  as  in  the 
West ;  call  back  to  the  country  towns  from  the  great 
cities  the  most  enterprising  of  those  who  have  gone 
thither ;  reproduce  every  circumstance  and  condition 
which  existed  forty  years  ago  in  these  towns,  even  to 
the  resurrection  from  their  graves,  in  the  prime  of 
life  and  in  the  fullness  of  their  strength,  of  the  same 
men  and  women  who  built  up  the  admirable  structures 
of  New  England  towns ;  they  would  be  as  powerless 
to  reconstruct  society  in  them  on  the  old  basis  as  we 
are.  They  could  not  do  it  here ;  they  could  not  do  it 
in  the  fertile  West. 

No.  The  old  New  England  towns,  as  they  existed 
forty  years  ago,  have  gone  forever.  They  may  return 
in  some  new  world,  as  a  stage  of  its  development ;  but 
in  this,  never,  —  we  shall  repose  in  the  Garden  of 
Eden  as  soon  !  Well,  then,  if  the  old  have  gone,  we 
must  build  anew ;  for  whether  New  England  is  to  con 
tinue  New  England  or  is  to  become  New  Ireland,  so 
long  as  her  mountains  stand,  and  her  rivers  run,  and 
human  nature  is  the  same,  she  will  still  remain  the 
abode  of  wise  and  prosperous  people.  Her  past  as 
sures  her  future. 

But  we  must  understand  the  extent  and  significance 
of  the  revolution  now  beginning  to  be  felt  as  never 
before,  and  of  which  the  decadence  of  New  England 
towns  and  the  change  of  society  in  them  are  only  in 
cidents,  —  a  revolution  which  everywhere  has  turned 
the  currents  of  society  into  new  channels,  modified 
the  thoughts  and  purposes  of  people  on  a  great  variety 
of  subjects,  impaired  the  force  of  influences  and  mo 
tives  once  powerful,  and  the  nature  of  which  —  what 
it  promises  or  what  it  portends  —  excites  solicitude 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     439 

among  those  who  wish  well  to  society,  and  hope  among 
those  who  do  not ! 

Call  this  change  the  elevation  of  the  masses,  or  their 
emancipation  from  political  and  ecclesiastical  leader 
ship,  or  the  advent  of  democracy,  —  whatever  it  is, 
whether  we  regard  it  with  hope  or  with  foreboding, 
we  ought  to  know  what  it  has  effected  thus  far  —  for 
the  end  is  not  yet  —  and  what  it  promises  or  threatens 
in  the  future. 

It  is  something  practical,  and  will  lead  to  practical 
results.  Three  hundred  years  ago,  the  proposition  by 
Copernicus  of  a  theory  which  relegated  the  earth  from 
its  usurped  centre  of  the  universe  to  a  secondary  place 
among  the  planets,  though  the  largest  astronomical 
fact  of  the  ages,  could  be  accepted  or  let  alone  with 
out  apparent  consequences.  Ships  sailed  the  seas  as 
before.  The  husbandman  rose  with  the  sun,  and  went 
to  his  bed  with  its  setting;  he  sowed  his  seed,  and 
ploughed,  and  reaped,  and  gathered  the  fruits  of  his 
toil,  as  his  fathers  had  done  from  the  beginning. 
Poets  still  used  the  old  imagery,  — 

"  'T  was  Jupiter  who  brought  whate'er  was  good, 
And  Venus  who  brought  everything  that 's  fair,"  — 

and  no  perceptible  change  appeared  in  literature. 
When  the  Reformation  came,  though  it  was  of  more 
ecclesiastical  significance,  the  unthinking  cared  little 
whether  the  vicegerency  of  God  had  been  committed 
to  Leo  X.  or  to  Henry  VIII. 

But  now  everybody  thinks,  after  a  fashion,  and  the 
advent  of  democracy  is  quite  another  affair.  It  means 
business,  and  will  neither  let  alone  nor  be  let  alone. 
Yet  by  what  slow  and  uncertain  steps  the  people 
moved  to  their  objective  point,  and  how  recently  they 
have  known  just  what  they  mean  !  The  democratic 


440     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

spirit,  at  first  ecclesiastical  rather  than  political  or  so 
cial,  manifested  itself  with  the  Eeformation,  and  has 
been  growing  ever  since.  In  the  mean  time  Bacon 
gave  his  "  Great  Instauration  "  to  the  world,  and 
Harvey  demonstrated  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and 
one  or  two  kings  lost  their  heads,  and  more,  their 
crowns,  the  meaning  of  which  was  clear  enough ;  but 
few  people  at  the  end  of  three  hundred  years  seemed 
to  understand  the  meaning  of  democracy.  Jefferson 
stood  alone.  When  our  forefathers  came  to  New  Eng 
land,  democracy  was  hardly  a  cardinal  principle  of 
their  institutions.  They  rejected  the  divine  right  of 
kings,  and  more  strenuously  that  of  episcopal  ordina 
tion,  as  opposed  to  their  own  rights ;  but  their  notions 
of  the  rights  of  men,  certainly  of  other  men,  were 
vague.  In  the  leading  New  England  colony,  for  the 
first  sixty  years  only  members  of  the  established 
church  could  vote  ;  and  for  the  next  hundred  and  fifty 
years  the  dominant  church,  supported  by  town  taxes, 
was  an  oligarchy,  equally  powerful,  even  when  op 
posed,  in  secular  as  in  ecclesiastical  affairs.  It  is 
only  within  the  memory  of  some  now  living  that  the 
people  have  insisted  on  a  really  democratic  system  ; 
for  long  after  it  became  nominally  democratic,  the 
practice  was  oligarchical. 

But  it  is  different  now.  Those  who  once  governed 
are  in  the  back  seats ;  the  people  are  in  the  front,  and 
the  government  is  in  their  hands.  What  will  they  do 
with  it  ?  Civilization  is  in  their  hands ;  what  will 
they  do  with  that  ?  The  answer  may  be  uncertain  ; 
but  there  is  one  thing  about  which  there  is  no  doubt, 
—  a  new  order  has  come,  and  come  to  stay ! 

Doubtless  the  old  political  and  ecclesiastical  leaders 
were  wise,  God-fearing  men  and  women,  and  compare 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     441 

favorably  with  those  who  have  ousted  them  from  place 
and  power.  Nevertheless,  as  an  order,  they  have 
gone,  and  forever. 

Thus  far  I  have  spoken  chiefly  of  the  decadence  of 
towns,  the  shifting  of  political  forces  from  the  few  to 
the  many,  and  the  loss  —  I  hope  it  is  only  in  abey 
ance  —  of  personal  prestige  as  a  force  in  society.  But 
I  think  we  should  take  a  wider  view,  and  one  that 
covers  a  longer  period,  not  merely  from  historical  curi 
osity,  but  to  gain  clearer  notions  of  facts  and  tenden 
cies,  that  we  may  understand  their  significance  and 
adjust  ourselves  to  them  without  loss  of  time.  We 
may  note  specific  changes,  each  distinct  in  itself,  but 
all  parts  of  a  general  change,  more  apparent  when 
traced  in  particular  instances. 

Some  of  us  recollect,  for  example,  when  the  great 
East  India  merchants,  and  after  them  the  great  man 
ufacturers,  dominated  New  England  not  so  much  by 
their  wealth  as  by  their  aristocratic  pretension.  Now, 
as  such,  they  are  without  prestige,  though  no  doubt 
powerful  in  the  possession  of  vast  capital ;  and  the 
great  monopolist  of  our  day,  the  result  of  exceptional 
and  temporary  causes,  must  go,  —  go  soon  ! 

Under  the  old  regime  the  man  behind  an  institution 
was  more  than  the  institution  itself,  or  at  least  was  its 
most  powerful  agent.  Edwards,  Chauncy,  Hopkins, 
Dwight,  Emmons,  Woods,  and  Channing,  when  they 
no  longer  catechised  the  children  and  performed  gen 
eral  police  duty  as  guardians  of  morals  and  manners, 
impressed  themselves  on  creeds  which  the  people  ac 
cepted.  To-day  children  in  the  Sunday  school,  greatly 
to  their  loss,  are  less  under  the  immediate  influence 
of  the  clergy  ;  and  with  here  and  there  an  exception, 
the  pulpit  speaks  the  sentiments,  not  of  the  church 


442     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

alone,  but  of  the  pews  as  well,  or  it  is  silenced.  The 
schoolmaster,  who  once  dominated  the  school  and  the 
school  committee  and  the  school  district,  especially  if 
he  "  boarded  round,"  is  now  strait- jacketed  by  a  sys 
tem  and  a  curriculum,  like  a  horse  in  a  treadmill. 
Some  of  us  recollect  when  "  Father  Ritchie  "  personi 
fied  the  "  Richmond  Enquirer,"  and  when  people 
asked,  What  does  Greeley  say  ?  or  Bennett  ?  or  Ray 
mond?— not  the  "Tribune,"  the  "Herald,"  or  the 
"  Times."  But  who  cares  now  for  editorial  opinion, 
save  as  it  represents  a  constituency  ?  The  great  per 
sonal  editors  made  public  sentiment ;  the  modern  im 
personal  journal  expresses  it,  for  now  people  have 
come  to  entertain  opinions  of  their  own  and  indulge 
in  aspirations. 

It  is  so  elsewhere.  In  its  palmy  days  the  "  London 
Times  "  was  influential  in  forming  public  opinion,  and 
in  respect  to  the  conduct  of  affairs,  because  it  repre 
sented  the  ranks  which  then  governed  England,  —  the 
aristocratic  sentiment  gathered  at  the  club,  in  the 
drawing-room,  at  the  dinner-table  of  a  minister,  or 
from  local  magnates  in  the  counties.  Then  public  sen 
timent  was  that  of  the  few,  not  that  of  the  many ;  now 
the  editorial  "  we,"  if  a  power,  expresses  the  average 
opinion  of  the  great  middle-class  of  English  society, 
and  must  soon  take  account  of  the  proletariat  classes. 

Journalism  has  become  impersonal ;  and  so  has 
literature.  Shakespeare,  of  whom  we  know  so  little, 
must  have  been  well  known  at  Stratford  and  at  the 
"  Globe."  No  doubt  he  discussed  bucolics  with 
farmers  on  the  Avon ;  and  at  the  theatre,  play 
wrights,  actors,  supernumeraries,  hangers-on,  wits 
about  town,  and  link-boys  hung  on  his  lips,  observed 
his  ways,  and  were  under  the  influence  of  his  per- 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     443 

sonal  charm  ;  otherwise  we  should  lack  Jonson's  lov 
ing  account  of  him.  Much  —  and  just  what  we  would 
like  to  know  —  each  took  and  gave,  in  which  the  tap 
ster  had  his  share,  when  Ben  and  his  roisterers  made 
a  night  of  it  at  the  "  Mermaid."  We  learn  from 
Drummond  of  Hawthornden,  how  Ben  could  talk 
when  he  would!  Bacon  and  Milton,  as  studious 
men,  no  doubt  secluded  themselves  from  the  Bohe 
mians  ;  but  each  impressed  the  people  of  his  time. 
And  we  shall  never  know  how  much  Queen  Anne's 
literature  owes  to  the  good  things  said  by  Dryden 
to  the  Steeles,  the  Addisons,  the  Wycherleys,  and 
the  Congreves,  as  they  thronged  about  his  chair  at 
"  Will's,"  —  perhaps  more  than  to  his  poems  and 
dramas.  At  "  The  Club,"  Johnson,  Burke,  and  Rey 
nolds  came  to  close  quarters.  There  was  no  flinch 
ing,  no  withholding  their  best  thoughts  for  publica 
tion  ;  and,  as  we  see  in  Boswell,  each  was  better  than 
his  books,  and  how  much  the  books  of  each  gained 
from  the  conversation  of  all !  To  Burke,  Fox  was 
indebted  for  his  political  philosophy  ;  and  in  Burke, 
who  owed  to  others  less  than  most  men,  we  see  here 
and  there  one  of  Johnson's  thoughts. 

Literature  grows  thin  and  colorless  when  it  is  dis 
tilled  from  books.  Its  true  inspiration  is  in  men 
and  in  nature.  Leigh  Hunt's  regret  that  he  had  not 
hunted  up  Coleridge  at  Highgate  when  he  might,  and 
drawn  from  his  inexhaustible  thought  and  imagina 
tion,  was  rational,  though  too  late. 

No  doubt  literary  people  —  and  for  that  matter  all 
sorts  of  people  —  have  their  clubs  nowadays,  and 
mix  in  society  as  formerly,  yet  with  a  difference. 
They  sally  forth  to  get,  not  to  give.  Fancy  one  of 
them  scattering  costly  seed  to  fall  perchance  into  an- 


444     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

other  man's  ground,  there  to  spring  up  and  bear  fruit 
to  be  gathered  into  his  garner  !  "  I  really  believe," 
says  the  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast  Table,  "  some 
people  save  their  best  thoughts,  as  being  too  precious 
for  conversation.  What  do  you  think  an  admiring 
friend  said  the  other  day  to  one  that  was  talking  good 
things,  —  good  enough  to  print  ?  4  Why,'  said  he, 
4  you  are  wasting  merchantable  literature,  a  cash  arti 
cle,  at  the  rate,  as  nearly  as  I  can  tell,  of  fifty  dollars 
an  hour.' "  Literary  people  to-day  are  delightful  in 
society,  and  say  their  good  things  as  formerly  ;  but 
each  is  labeled  "All  rights  reserved,"  as  the  un 
scrupulous  appropriator  of  a  seeming  waif  finds,  for 
the  lawful  proprietor  was  quoting  from  the  proof- 
sheets  of  his  next  volume  or  magazine  article !  On 
our  part  we  are  as  curious  as  people  ever  were  to  know 
our  literary  magnates.  We  get  one  of  them  into  a 
corner ;  we  fancy  we  are  studying  him ;  we  go  away 
delighted:  but  the  chances  are  that  he  was  studying 
us,  and  that  we  shall  behold  our  distorted  lineaments 
in  his  next  novel.  Tiger-hunting  no  doubt  is  an  ex 
citing  sport ;  but  it  makes  some  difference,  I  am  told, 
whether  you  hunt  the  tiger  or  the  tiger  hunts  you  ! 

Now,  I  need  not  say  to  one  sixty  years  old,  how  dif 
ferent  all  this  was  when  boys  and  girls  formed  them 
selves  on  the  parson,  the  squire,  the  schoolmaster,  the 
schoolmistress,  "  the  fine  old  gentleman,"  or  "  the  lady 
of  the  old  school,"  —  of  which  no  town  had  more  ad 
mirable  examples  than  Brattleborough,  —  each  a  glass 
of  fashion  or  a  mould  of  form.  Then  the  man  of 
learning  or  travel  or  of  special  gifts  held  all  in  trust 
for  the  society  in  which  he  lived. 

I  think  we  now  recognize  the  great  change  which 
has  taken  place  in  all  departments  of  thought  and 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     445 

action,  with  the  loss  which  has  followed  the  elimina 
tion  of  personal  influence,  though  only  partial,  as  a 
power  in  education,  manners,  and  conduct,  and  begin 
to  be  solicitous  in  respect  to  consequences  as  well  as 
to  the  means  by  which  the  loss  can  be  repaired. 

What  is  the  real  state  of  the  case  ?  Whence  comes 
this  new  sense  of  power  in  the  people  ?  Have  they 
discarded  old  beliefs  and  old  leaders,  and  determined 
to  set  up  for  themselves  on  new  lines  ;  or  is  it  merely 
a  general  movement  of  society  in  which  the  people, 
in  their  haste  to  get  on,  have  outrun  their  slower 
guides  ?  Coleridge  expresses  the  old  notion,  and  his 
aversion  to  the  new  which  was  beginning  to  appear 
in  his  time.  "  Statesmen  should  know,"  he  says, 
"that  a  learned  class  is  an  essential  element  of  a 
state,  at  least  of  a  Christian  state.  But  you  work  for 
general  illumination.  You  begin  with  the  attempt  to 
popularize  learning  and  philosophy  ;  but  you  will  end 
with  the  plebification  of  knowledge.  A  true  philoso 
phy  in  the  learned  class  is  essential  to  a  true  religious 
feeling  in  all  classes." 

We  owe  a  great  deal  to  Coleridge.  His  poetry  is 
of  the  best ;  his  critical  system  we  accept ;  and  we  find 
much  to  our  purpose  in  his  ethical  philosophy.  But 
he  believed  that  the  diffusion  of  knowledge  weakened 
knowledge,  just  as  he  regarded  the  cosmopolitan  spirit 
as  incompatible  with  patriotism  ;  nor  did  he  think 
that  the  people,  unaided  by  a  select  class  of  learned 
men,  could  save  learning  or  religion  or  the  state.1 

Against  all  this  the  people  seem  to  be  in  revolt, 
and  we  must  side  with  the  people.  In  all  matters, 
theological,  political,  or  educational,  they  will  think 
and  act  for  themselves ;  that  is  what  the  new  order  of 

1  The  Friend,  Essay  ix. 


446     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

things  means.  They  may  make  sorry  work  of  it  for  a 
time ;  and  looking  at  results  thus  far,  they  might  be 
better  off  were  their  thinking  done  for  them  as  for 
merly.  But  this  is  a  shallow  view  of  the  matter.  We 
must  accept  the  fact  that  knowledge,  both  secular  and 
ecclesiastical,  is  being  popularized,  and  have  faith 
that  society  will  get  on,  nevertheless,  and  find  the  new 
order  not  only  tolerable  but  conformable  to  the  divine 
will,  and  therefore  to  its  highest  interests.  In  the 
change  from  the  old  to  the  new  there  may  be  tem 
porary  loss  and  confusion.  This  is  to  be  expected. 
Just  now  we  are  like  sheep  without  a  shepherd.  Who 
leads  one  party  as  Jackson  did,  or  the  other  party  as 
Clay  did  ?  Where  is  the  great  leader  of  a  denomina 
tion  like  the  elder  Beecher,  or  Ware,  or  Woods,  or 
Channing  ?  Whose  literary  canons  are  accepted  as 
final?  We  find  nowhere,  I  suspect,  the  wise  domi 
nating  personal  influences  once  found  in  every  com 
munity.  Bosses  are  obstreperous  ;  but  they  are  nei 
ther  the  people  nor  of  the  people,  and  will  subside. 
In  this  transition  state,  with  the  old  house  pulled 
down  about  our  ears  before  the  new  is  ready  to  re 
ceive  us,  things  are  uncomfortable  enough.  But  this 
is  quite  in  the  ordinary  course  of  things.  No  farmer 
who  all  his  life  has  handled  hoes  and  scythes  and 
rakes  ever  takes  kindly  to  the  machines  which  dis 
place  the  old-fashioned  implements  ;  but  his  boys  do. 

And  I  wonder  if  one  who  "parsed"  and  "ciphered" 
and  picked  up  his  knowledge  in  the  fashion  of  the  old 
district  school,  and  with  excellent  results,  ever  saw  the 
children  in  a  graded  school  come  out  in  platoons,  dis 
charge  their  volleys,  and  fall  back  with  the  precision 
of  military  drill,  without  misgivings  as  to  the  develop 
ment  of  individual  character. 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     447 

Our  fears  are  often  more  serious  than  their  realiza 
tion.  We  ought  to  take  some  pains,  therefore,  to 
learn  the  direction  of  the  stream  by  which  we  stand 
shivering.  We  call  the  new  order  the  advent  of 
democracy.  That  does  not  help  but  rather  frightens 
us,  unless  we  come  to  a  clearer  understanding  of 
democracy.  If  we  mean  the  party  which  calls  itself 
by  that  name,  then  with  all  good  Republicans  I  be 
wail  the  future  of  our  country.  If,  on  the  contrary, 
we  mean  the  party  with  the  other  name,  then  I  join 
all  good  Democrats  in  deprecating  its  return  to  power. 
I  mean  something  which  the  leaders  of  both  parties 
hate  with  equal  cordiality.  Whatever  form  demo 
cracy  may  ultimately  take,  I  think  it  does  not  now 
mean  socialism,  nor  communism,  nor,  least  of  all, 
anarchy.  So  far  we  may  trust  the  immutable  prin 
ciples  of  human  nature.  No  power  less  than  that 
which  ordained  natural  laws  can  overturn  them,  or 
essentially  modify  principles  coeval  with  the  race. 
Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  can  the  natural  development 
of  human  rights  be  arrested. 

I  think  we  may  say  that  democracy  will  not  be 
content  with  the  mere  right  to  acquire  and  hold  pro 
perty  free  from  the  exactions  of  privileged  classes, 
nor  to  exercise  the  franchise  and  be  eligible  to  office, 
nor  to  be  equal  before  any  law  less  comprehensive 
and  beneficial  than  the  moral  law.  First  of  all,  it 
will  demand  liberty,  and  next  equality,  subject  only 
to  unalterable  limitations.  It  will  recognize  private 
property  rightfully  acquired,  but  will  claim  public 
property  as  a  trust  sacredly  to  be  administered  for 
the  benefit  of  all ;  and  will  regard  as  public  property 
all  which  has  accrued  to  the  state  or  to  society  by  the 
procession  of  time,  or  from  the  labors  of  statesmen 


448     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

and  philanthropists,  or  from  the  genius  of  inventors, 
or  from  the  skill  of  artists,  or  from  the  songs  of  poets, 
or  from  the  prayers  of  saints,  or  from  the  faith  of 
martyrs,  together  with  all  those  select  and  benign 
influences  which  have  come  into  the  life  of  man, 
hitherto  engrossed  by  the  well-born,  the  fortunate, 
and  the  righteous,  but  henceforth  to  be  entered  into 
and  enjoyed  equally  by  those  who  are  poor  or  unfor 
tunate  or  sinful,  and  by  each  to  the  fullest  extent  of 
his  necessities  or  his  desires,  limited  only  by  the  equal 
rights  of  others. 

It  is  opposed  to  the  law  of  the  strongest,  —  if  there 
is  such  a  law,  —  and  to  the  law  of  the  fittest,  —  if  by 
fittest  is  meant  one  more  capable  than  another  to 
monopolize  and  enjoy  in  a  high  degree  those  things 
which  all  may  enjoy  in  some  degree. 

If  libraries,  galleries,  and  museums  are  of  value  to 
the  cultured  by  reason  of  their  culture,  then  they 
must  be  multiplied  and  so  administered  as  to  conduce 
to  the  culture  and  consequent  enjoyment  of  the  un 
fortunate,  hitherto  little  considered.  If  they  are  a 
solace  to  the  refined,  they  ought  also  to  minister  to 
the  coarse  and  the  unlettered.  While  we  live  under 
the  law  of  Christ  we  should  strive  for  its  fulfillment. 
It  is  all  sufficing  for  society  as  well  as  for  individuals  ; 
nor  can  we  ever  safely  forget  that  the  lamp  of  Chris 
tendom,  unfed  by  the  oil  that  is  the  Light  of  the 
world,  will  pale  and  flicker  and  go  out,  and  there  will 
be  darkness  over  all  the  land!  And  though  there 
are  difficulties  in  applying  this  law,  or  in  enforcing 
the  inalienable  rights  of  man  as  formulated  by  Jeffer 
son,  nevertheless  we  will  remember  that  the  advance 
of  the  church  has  always  been  along  the  line  of  high 
est  endeavor;  nor  do  I  think  it  extravagant  to  say 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     449 

that  the  better  condition  of  mankind,  so  far  as  it  has 
been  brought  about  by  the  modification  of  political 
institutions  and  of  the  modes  of  administration,  is  due, 
more  than  to  any  other  human  cause,  to  the  "  glitter 
ing  generalities  "  of  Jefferson.  Therefore  we  will  set 
up  high  ideals ;  therefore  we  will  attempt  the  impossi 
ble,  for  only  thus  shall  we  achieve  the  highest  at 
tainable. 

If,  now,  we  recognize  in  the  new  order  some  loss  of 
those  influences  by  which  society  was  sustained  and 
carried  forward,  and  if  we  have  adequate  notions  as 
to  the  just  rights  and  demands  of  democracy,  then 
we  must  attend  to  the  instrumentalities  by  which  we 
hope  to  supply  the  place  of  those  which  have  passed 
away,  and  consider  how,  under  new  conditions,  we 
may  carry  forward  civilization  which,  as  never  before, 
is  to  be  of  and  for  the  people.  New  England  once 
taught  the  old  democracy  that  resistance  to  tyrants  is 
obedience  to  God.  That  was  the  work  of  her  Otises, 
her  Adamses,  and  their  compatriots.  Once  more  she 
must  lead  in  a  revolution  more  momentous  than  the 
first.  Decaying  towns,  abandoned  churches,  and  dilap 
idated  schoolhouses  reproach  the  civilization  which 
cost  our  fathers  dear.  This  reproach  must  be  taken 
away.  Cultured  men  and  women,  affronted  by  the 
rudeness  of  the  lower  classes,  have  retired  from  the 
contest  with  disgust.  They  must  return  to  duty.  The 
army  of  God,  now  broken  and  dispersed,  must  close 
ranks  and  rally  around  a  common  standard.  Not 
against  each  other,  but  against  a  common  foe,  let  the 
temper  of  sword  and  shield  be  tested.  You  know 
what  people  are  thinking  about ;  and  you  know  it  is 
not  the  Trinity,  nor  a  mode  of  baptism,  nor  the  pro 
bation  of  a  future  life.  No;  it  is  questions  more 


450     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

fundamental  than  these.  And  next  to  these  funda 
mental  questions  is  the  question  how  to  save  New 
England  to  Christianity  and  to  civilization. 

Five-and-forty  years  ago,  when  it  was  found  that 
the  old  district  schools  in  this  village  were  yielding 
unsatisfactory  results,  by  the  advice  of  some  of  your 
leading  men,  and  aided  by  legislative  action  sought 
for  the  purpose,  your  fathers  set  up  for  the  first  time 
in  this  State  a  graded  school,  which,  successful  here, 
was  the  pioneer  of  those  now  existing  in  all  your 
larger  villages. 

With  equal  wisdom  George  J.  Brooks  —  so  lately 
one  of  your  esteemed  citizens,  now  among  your  hon 
ored  dead  —  considered  the  requirements  of  the  new 
order  of  things,  and  with  munificent  liberality  has 
given  you  an  institution  which  connects  itself  with 
your  churches  and  your  schools,  and  which,  wisely 
administered,  will  be  a  power  for  civilization  scarcely 
less  influential. 

Its  adjustment  so  as  to  work  harmoniously  and 
efficiently  with  existing  institutions  may  be  slow. 
Some  mistakes  will  be  inevitable;  but  they  should 
be  few.  Everybody  knows  that  organizations  exist 
throughout  the  country  for  promoting  common-school 
education  and  for  the  encouragement  of  teachers; 
but  I  think  it  is  less  generally  known  that  m  Great 
Britain  and  in  the  United  States  there  are  similar  or 
ganizations  designed  to  promote  the  establishment  and 
conduct  of  libraries,  —  mainly,  of  free  public  libraries. 
Our  own  is  called  the  American  Library  Association, 
which  maintains  a  journal,  now  entering  upon  its 
twelfth  year,  in  which  are  to  be  found  the  papers  and 
discussions  of  experts  on  every  conceivable  question  of 
library  economy  and  administration,  elicited  during 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     451 

the  annual  three  days'  sessions,  constituting  a  body 
of  literature  which  cannot  prudently  be  overlooked 
by  those  concerned  in  the  management  of  libraries. 

The  new  order  is  fairly  inaugurated.  But  in  tak 
ing  leave  of  the  old  order  and  entering  upon  the  new 
under  such  auspicious  circumstances,  I  am  not  willing 
to  be  understood  as  saying,  since  I  am  far  from  think 
ing,  that  the  time  ever  will  be  when  the  personal 
influence  of  noble  men  and  women  will  fail  — 

"  To  give  us  manners,  virtue,  freedom,  power," 

or  that  it  will  be  of  small  account  in  the  upbuilding 
and  maintenance  of  that  state  of  society  in  which 
alone  life  is  worth  living.  What  I  wish  to  say  is 
that  with  the  advance  of  general  education  the  influ 
ence  of  exceptionally  cultured  persons,  apart  from 
the  people  and  above  them,  will  probably  not  be  so 
much  felt  as  heretofore,  except  in  giving  direction  and 
efficiency  to  organized  forces,  like  churches,  schools, 
and  libraries.  Brattleborough  has  entered  upon  the 
new  order.  Her  free  public  library  receives  cordial 
greetings  from  sister  libraries  as  one  more  of  those 
institutions  which  bring  on  the  beneficent  ages.  Al 
ways  known  as  one  of  the  most  beautiful  of  the  river 
towns,  and  as  the  abode  of  intelligent  and  refined 
people,  so  she  will  continue  to  be  known  in  the  larger 
life  upon  which  she  enters  to-day.  She  has  lost  one 
of  her  most  esteemed  citizens,  —  him  whom  she  re 
spected  for  his  public  spirit,  his  pure  character,  and 
his  daily  life,  —  him  for  whom  she  mourns  as  one 
that  is  dead.  But  what  continuance  of  character  and 
of  example  will  be  his !  What  ages  will  partake  of 
his  liberality ;  what  succession  of  children  will  cherish 
his  memory;  what  generations  of  men  and  women 
will  owe  to  him  higher,  richer,  happier  lives ! 


452     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

I  have  mentioned  some  indications  of  a  revolution 
now  in  progress,  thus  far  proceeding  by  constitutional 
methods  and  without  shock  to  well-regulated  sensibili 
ties,  which  has  already  shifted  the  power  of  govern 
ment  from  the  few  to  the  many,  shaken  the  partition 
walls  which  divide  sects,  popularized  science,  art,  and 
literature,  impaired  personal  and  social  prestige,  and 
led  to  popular  organization  of  forces  once  wielded  by 
individuals,  —  a  revolution  which,  though  pending  for 
centuries,  was  dimly  seen  in  its  approach  and  imper 
fectly  apprehended  in  its  results  or  in  its  tendency, 
—  a  revolution  which,  as  I  have  said,  may  prove  to  be 
the  most  momentous  in  recorded  history. 

This  revolution  is  contemporaneous  with  causes  in 
operation  which  have  diminished  the  agricultural 
prosperity,  reduced  the  population,  and  clouded  the 
future  of  our  New  England  towns. 

What  then  ?  Is  it  expected  that  free  public  libra 
ries  will  rectify  whatever  is  amiss  in  society  or  arrest 
the  operation  of  economic  laws  ?  Certainly  not.  But 
may  we  not  reasonably  hope  that  they  will  take  the 
place,  in  part  at  least,  of  forces  fallen  into  decadence ; 
that  their  establishment  will  be  in  conformity  with  a 
manifest  intent  of  the  people  to  organize  themselves 
into  all  those  forms  of  instrumentality  which  may 
promote  intelligence,  virtue,  liberty,  and  equality ; 
that  the  successful  organization  of  the  people  for  the 
maintenance  of  free  public  libraries  will  lead  to  their 
organization  in  all  departments  of  human  interest, 
and  demonstrate  that  the  whole  people,  thus  organ 
ized,  are  wiser  than  any  fraction  of  the  people,  how 
ever  wise  or  cultured  or  virtuously  disposed ;  and 
that,  in  making  science  and  literature  free  and  acces 
sible,  one  step  has  been  taken  towards  equalizing  the 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     453 

conditions  which  enable  all  to  enter  into  and  enjoy 
those  privileges  to  which  all  are  entitled,  and  which, 
when  entered  into  and  enjoyed,  become  a  force  for 
the  development  of  the  industrial,  intellectual,  and 
moral  resources  of  the  community  ? 

New  England  holds  the  graves  of  the  ancestors  of 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States ;  and  never  can  her  prosperity  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  their  posterity,  even  in  remote  genera 
tions.  They  will  come  hither  on  pious  pilgrimages  ; 
nor  to  them  will  her  hills  and  mountains,  her  pure 
air  and  beautiful  rivers,  be  less  attractive  by  the  pre 
sence  of  free  schools,  free  churches,  and  free  public 
libraries. 

I  have,  I  trust,  no  disposition  to  magnify  the  im 
portance  of  free  public  libraries  ;  but  there  are  some 
facts,  in  my  judgment,  which  have  not  been  duly  con 
sidered,  and  to  which  I  shall  presently  advert,  tend 
ing  to  show  that  the  power  of  literature  for  the  de 
velopment  of  exact  and  productive  thought,  and  for 
inspiring  sentiments  which  go  to  the  making  of  a 
great  people,  has  not  had  a  fair  trial  in  New  Eng 
land. 

At  the  dedication  of  the  new  library  building  at 
Dartmouth  College  the  other  day,  I  gave  some  rea 
sons  for  believing  that  great  libraries  at  the  centres 
of  art,  science,  and  literature  will,  under  the  condi 
tions  of  our  American  life,  probably  be  powerful 
incentives  and  agencies  of  our  progress  in  those 
departments  of  thought  and  achievement ;  and  I  now 
ask  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  present  activ 
ity,  in  which  our  best  critics  discern  a  literary  revival, 
is  coincident  with  the  diffusion  of  literature  within 
the  last  forty  years  among  the  people,  and  that  with 


454     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

its  wider  diffusion  by  the  means  of  public  libraries 
in  all  our  towns  we  may  reasonably  expect  even 
more  gratifying  results.  This  calls  for  a  brief  review 
of  the  literary  history  of  New  England.  And  if  you 
listen  to  it  without  surprise,  it  must  be  because  you 
are  better  informed  as  to  the  facts  than  I  was  when  I 
began  to  look  into  them.  The  New  England  born 
have  from  the  beginning  been  an  educated  people  ; 
and  it  has  been  generally  supposed  that  their  literary 
culture  was  up  to  the  level  of  their  general  ability 
and  intellectual  training.  I  think  the  fact  is  other 
wise.  Neither  Pilgrims  nor  Puritans  were  literary 
people,  nor  with  a  few  exceptions  were  they  highly 
educated  people.  They  were  mainly  English  farmers 
living  remote  from  literary  centres,  and  having 
neither  means  nor  disposition  to  go  beyond  the  Eng 
lish  parochial  education  of  those  days.  At  their  emi 
gration  they  were  led  by  some  very  able  and  learned 
men,  —  graduates  of  Cambridge  and  Oxford,  —  whose 
studies  were  chiefly  Biblical  and  polemical,  and  whose 
culture  had  been  classical  rather  than  English.  There 
is  no  evidence  that  they  quaffed  at  Chaucer's  pure 
well,  or  had  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  the  dra 
matists  of  the  Elizabethan  period.  Nor  would  this 
have  been  likely  with  men  who  regarded  much  of 
that  literature  as  licentious,  some  of  it  even  as  blas 
phemous,  —  to  say  nothing  of  Shakespeare's  floutings 
of  the  Puritans  and  Brownists,  —  and  all  of  it  as  idle 
for  clergymen  absorbed  in  the  great  Puritan  Reforma 
tion,  or  in  deadly  conflict  with  Laud  and  the  High 
Commission,  —  idle  for  those  ejected  from  their  liv 
ings  or  fleeing  from  the  processes  of  the  Star  Cham 
ber,  with  no  place  to  lay  their  heads.  That  was  110 
time  for  such  men  to  lend  their  ears  —  even  if  they 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     455 

had  not,  like  Prynne,  left  them  in  the  pillory  —  to 
Marlowe,  Shakespeare,  Jonson,  or  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher.  This  likelihood  is  made  certainty  by  the 
absence  in  their  writings  of  quotations  from  these 
authors,  or  of  allusion  to  them.1  They  are  not  known 
to  have  had  a  single  copy  of  either  in  their  new 
homes,  and  how  deeply  they  had  quaffed  at  their 
stimulating  fountains  while  in  the  old  home  may  be 
guessed  if  we  read  the  Bay  Psalm  Book  version  of 
these  Oxford  and  Cambridge  graduates  by  which  they 
displaced  the  comparatively  sublime  and  poetical  ren 
derings  of  Sternhold  and  Hopkins. 

So  was  it  with  the  first  emigrants  ;  with  their 
children  of  the  first  and  second  generations,  it  was 
worse.2  We  have  their  poetry,  and  from  the  lists  of 
their  books  which  have  been  preserved  we  know  what 
they  read,  —  Latin  poets,  polemical  divinity,  history, 
public  law,  commentaries,  and  concordances.  Before 
1700  there  was  not  in  Massachusetts,  so  far  as  is 
known,  a  copy  of  Shakespeare's  or  of  Milton's  3  poems  ; 
and  as  late  as  1723,  whatever  may  have  been  in  pri 
vate  hands,  Harvard  College  Library  lacked  Addison, 
Atterbury,  Bolingbroke,  Dryden,  Gay,  Locke,  Pope, 
Prior,  Steele,  Swift,  and  Young.4 

As  we  approach  the  American  Revolution,  we  find 
a  better  state  of  things  ;  but  even  then,  as  the  gravity 

1  The  earliest  quotation  from  Shakespeare  found  in  the  series  of 
Massachusetts  Election  Sermons  is  by  Zabdiel  Adams  in  1782 ;  and 
that  is  a  misquotation. 

2  J.  W.  Dean  says  of  Michael  Wiggles  worth's  library,  "  Of  classical 
literature  there  is  little,  and  of  English  belles-lettres  nothing-.     But 
what  will  excite  most  surprise  is  the  dearth  of  poetry."  —  Memoir  of 
Wigglesworth,  2d  ed.,  130. 

3  Doyle's  English  in  America,  ii.  488. 

4  Palfrey's  History,  iv.  384  n. ;  v.  318  n. ;  Memorial  History  of  Bos 
ton,  i.  455. 


456     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

of  their  situation  would  lead  us  to  expect,  scholars 
were  devoted  to  ecclesiasticism,  politics,  and  constitu 
tional  law  rather  than  to  literature.1  They  had  Shake 
speare  and  Milton ;  but  so  little  in  popular  demand 
were  these  writers  that  the  first  was  not  reprinted  in 
New  England  until  1802-1804,  nor  do  I  find  the  sec 
ond  until  1796,  though  it  was  found  twenty  years 
earlier  in  Philadelphia.2 

The  splendid  outburst  of  English  song  in  the  first 
quarter  of  this  century  found  no  echo  among  our 
New  England  hills.  Exceptional  communities,  like 
that  of  Brattleborough,  doubtless  there  were  ;  but  the 
average  literary  taste  was  not  high  for  a  people  edu 
cated  and  trained  to  habits  of  close  thinking  on  some 
subjects.  Joel  Barlow,  Timothy  D wight,  and  Mercy 
Warren  3  adequately  expressed  the  poetic  feeling  of 
New  England,  —  and  in  such  poetry  !  The  literature 
of  England,  as  a  whole,  was  a  sealed  book  to  them. 
They  were  an  English^  speaking  people  in  the  nine 
teenth  century  without  Richardson,  Fielding,  Smollett, 
Frances  Burney,  William  Godwin,  or  Jane  Austen,  or 
the  poets  later  than  Cowper.  Of  French  and  German 
literature  they  knew  nothing  until  long  afterwards. 

But  let  those  who  can  speak  from  observation  com 
pare  the  literary  furnishing  of  a  New  England  village 
about  1830  with  that  of  the  same  village  in  1850. 
At  the  former  period  there  were  in  many  country 
villages  small  collections  of  books,  without  literary 
value ;  but  in  the  homes  of  prosperous  yeomen,  me 
chanics,  and  tradesmen  there  was .  little  native  fiction, 

1  Brougham's  Colonial  Policy,  i.  64. 

2  Mr.  James  M.  Hubbard,  formerly  of  the  Boston  Public  Library, 
reminds  me  that  several  plays,  among  them  "Hamlet"  and  "  Twelfth 
Night"  were  printed  in  Boston  in  1794. 

3  Tudor's  Life  of  Otis,  23. 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     457 

save  "Eliza  Wharton"  and  "  Alonzo  and  Melissa;  " 
and  few  English  reprints,  save  "  Robinson  Crusoe," 
"Charlotte  Temple,"  the  "Scottish  Chiefs,"  and 
"  Thaddeus  of  Warsaw  ;  "  while  their  poetry,  if  any 
they  had,  was  Young's  "  Night  Thoughts,"  Thomson's 
"Seasons,"  Pope's  "Essay  on  Man,"  Cowper's 
"  Task,"  and,  occasionally  to  be  seen,  "  Paradise  Lost." 
This  was  excellent  reading,  of  course ;  but  they  had 
nothing  of  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Shelley,  Keats,  or, 
save  surreptitiously,  Byron,  —  those  whose  song  en 
riched  English  literature,  and  stimulated  the  thought 
of  their  English  brethren  to  a  degree  and  in  a  direc 
tion  before  unknown.1 

This  dearth  of  literature  was  less  extraordinary  than 
the  limited  range  of  their  thought  outside  of  theology, 
politics,  and  economical  affairs,  in  which,  it  is  but  just 
to  say,  they  have  seldom  been  surpassed  or  equaled, 
—  certainly  not  by  the  present  generation.  The  fact 
is  that  down  to  that  time  they  had  lived  under  ex 
ceptional  conditions.  Remote  from  those  influences 
which  on  their  native  soil  had  developed  the  songs, 
the  folk-lore,  and  the  fairy  tales  of  the  common  peo 
ple,  remote  also  from  the  literature  of  the  race,  and 
engaged  in  conflicts  which  engrossed  all  their  facul 
ties,  they  were  obliged  to  await  more  favorable  condi 
tions  for  taking  up  and  carrying  forward  its  literature. 
The  result  of  this  state  of  things  could  hardly  fail  to 
appear  in  the  culture  and  literary  product  of  New 
England  life ;  and  it  is  no  marvel  that  the  people  did 
not  keep  pace  with  their  kindred  in  the  old  home 
who  at  the  same  period  were  producing  a  literature 
in  all  departments  which  compares  favorably  with  that 
of  any  age. 

1  Henry  Adams's  History  of  the  United  States,  i.  ch.  3. 


458     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

A  change  in  the  people  —  for  I  am  not  speaking  of 
literary  centres  or  of  exceptionally  favored  individu 
als,  nor  do  I  wish  to  be  misunderstood  on  this  point 
-was  apparent  as  early  as  1850,  and  has  become 
more  marked  with  each  succeeding  year.  Now  books 
are  everywhere ;  no  cottage  so  poor  as  to  lack  them  ; 
thought  is  free,  discursive,  and  beginning  to  be  pro 
ductive.  There  is  movement  in  the  tree-tops.  The 
sun  is  up  :  it  shines  on  the  prairies  ;  it  gilds  the  great 
mountains,  and  rises  where  our  sun  descends,  on  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific.  The  heavens  are  flooded  with 
light.  A  new  world  of  thought  is  opened,  and  the 
land  is  stimulated  to  its  investigation. 

This  change  must  be  accounted  for.  No  doubt  the 
causes  are  many ;  but  it  is  noticeable  that  it  began  to 
appear  simultaneously  with  the  extraordinary  activity, 
forty  years  ago,  of  the  great  publishing  houses  of  Bos 
ton,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia  in  their  reprints  of 
the  best  English  authors  and  reviews,  in  which,  al 
most  as  soon  as  our  kindred  in  rural  England,  we  read 
the  brilliant  essays  of  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Jeffrey, 
Brougham,  and  Mackintosh.  Now  I  hope  you  will 
believe  that  this  revival  of  the  literary  spirit  among 
a  people  who  claim  Shakespeare  and  Milton  as  theirs 
is  due  in  part  at  least,  though  only  in  part,  to  the 
dissemination  of  good  literature.  The  abundance  of 
books  stimulated  the  multiplication  of  libraries  ;  libra 
ries,  the  increase  of  books  ;  and  both,  of  reading  ;  but 
all  to  what  good  end  ?  It  is  a  fair  question  ;  indeed, 
it  is  a  wise  one.  In  considering  the  value  of  books  as 
a  productive  force  in  the  creation  of  a  genuine  liter 
ature  sprung  from  the  soil,  —  and  none  other  can  be 
genuine,  —  I  am,  I  suppose,  committed  to  a  favora 
ble  opinion  of  them,  since  it  is  with  them  especially 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     459 

that  my  life  is  occupied ;  but  I  hope  that  I  am  not 
unmindful  of  the  danger  of  their  indiscriminate  use, 
or  of  a  too  slavish  reliance  upon  them  for  inspiration, 
for  substance,  or  for  form  of  literature.  Victor  Hugo 
asks  :  "  What  has  the  human  race  been  since  the 
beginning  of  time  ?  A  reader.  For  a  long  time  he 
has  spelled  ;  he  spells  yet ;  soon  he  will  read.  .  .  . 
Henceforth  all  human  advancement  will  be  accom 
plished  by  swelling  the  legions  of  those  who  read. 
.  .  .  The  human  race  is  at  last  on  the  point  of  spread 
ing  the  book  wide  open."  In  this  newly  acquired 
faculty  of  reading,  and  in  legions  of  readers,  and  in 
books  wide  open,  Victor  Hugo  discerns  the  hope  of 
the  world ;  and  at  these  Coleridge  stands  aghast.  We 
will  endeavor  to  be  more  rational  than  either. 

After  all  that  can  be  said  in  favor  of  disseminating 
good  literature  among  the  people,  why  not  leave  it,  as 
most  other  things  are  left,  to  the  operation  of  econo 
mic  laws  ?  If  the  people  want  books,  they  will  have 
them  ;  if  not,  why  force  them  to  read  ?  In  the  first 
place,  the  reasonable  desires  of  many  people  are  in 
excess  of  their  means  ;  and  in  the  next  place,  books 
aggregated  and  easily  accessible  have  a  power  denied 
to  them  when  dispersed.  A  library  well  selected  and 
wisely  administered  is  an  organism  with  a  life  and 
purpose  of  its  own.  Such  an  organism  rises  here  un 
der  the  potent  wand  of  Mr.  Brooks.  To  it  flock  the 
mighty  spirits  of  the  past,  —  spirits  mighty  by  their 
knowledge  and  by  their  wisdom,  poets  mighty  by  their 
gift  of  song,  —  and  to  it  will  flock  those  who  in  the 
future  contribute  to  the  instruction  or  delight  of  man 
kind,  and  here  will  dwell  wisdom  and  beauty  to  enrich 
with  wisdom  and  beauty  all  who  shall  come  hither. 

I  have  said  little,  nor  do  I  intend  to  say  more,  in 


460     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

respect  to  the  obvious  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
free  public  access  to  a  large  body  of  excellent  read 
ing,  either  for  instruction  or  amusement ;  nor  to  dwell 
upon  the  fact  that  free  public  libraries  may  be  justly 
regarded  as  the  complement  and  crowning  glory  of 
our  free  common  schools.  Granting  all  that  may  be 
said  in  behalf  of  the  dissemination  and  free  use  of 
good  literature,  I  confess  that  I  am  more  solicitous 
about  the  likelihood  of  its  stimulating  that  original 
thought  of  the  people  which  will  find  its  expression  in 
literature ;  and  all  the  more  solicitous  am  I,  because, 
when  compared  with  what  we  have  done  in  theology, 
speculative  thought,  jurisprudence,  constitutional  pol 
itics,  and  science,  the  product  of  our  imaginative  liter 
ature  is  chiefly  conspicuous  by  its  absence. 

What,  then,  may  be  fairly  expected  of  free  public 
libraries  in  stimulating  the  production  of  an  original 
literature  ?  The  literature  of  New  England  thus  far 
presents  three  phases,  two  of  which,  like  "  the  new 
moon  with  the  old  moon  in  her  arms,"  are  contempo 
raneous,  while  the  third  is  like  that  orb  risen  just 
above  the  horizon.  The  first,  not  copious  but  rich  in 
quality,  expresses  the  homely  genuine  thought  and 
feeling  of  New  England  people,  —  the  outcome  of 
secluded  life  among  her  hills  and  valleys  ;  the  second, 
the  result  of  the  high  culture  of  exceptional,  not  re 
presentative,  men  and  women,  though  pure  in  color, 
excellent  in  form,  and  of  high  literary  merit,  expresses 
little  save  the  sentiment  of  its  authors;  while  the 
third,  richer  than  either  with  the  thought  of  the  peo 
ple  stimulated  by  literature  disseminated  among  them, 
and  now  united  with  the  lately  inspired  feeling  of  na 
tionality,  gives  promise  of  a  genuine  native  literature. 
In  the  creation  of  this  literature  springing  from  the 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     461 

people  —  and  none  other  is  worthy  of  the  name  —  I 
think  our  public  libraries  are  to  have  an  important 
influence. 

If  literature  is  to  have  the  stimulating  and  produc 
tive  energy  in  the  future  which  I  have  claimed  for  it 
during  the  last  forty  years,  augmented  by  its  concen 
tration  here  in  a  living  organism,  let  us  consider  with 
what  purpose  we  ought  to  repair  to  it,  and  what  and 
how  we  ought  to  read.  This  library  is  primarily  a 
literary  institution,  designed,  as  are  all  such  institu 
tions,  to  endue  the  people  with  learning  and  wisdom 
and  the  sense  of  beauty,  that  they  may  become  a  foun 
tain  from  which  shall  flow  learning  and  wisdom  and 
beauty  in  unending  succession. 

No  literature  other  than  what  is  the  sincere  expres 
sion  of  genuine  thoughts  and  feelings  which  the  race 
recognize  as  their  own  is  likely  to  have  continuance 
or  essential  power.  Form,  expression,  and  graces  of 
style  change  and  fall  away ;  substance  alone  endures. 

Under  the  circumstances  which  produced  much  of 
our  own  literature  serious  defects  could  hardly  have 
been  avoided.  Let  us  recall  the  worst  that  has  been 
said  of  it ;  since  for  our  purposes  the  worst,  in  its  un 
compromising  form,  is  better  than  that  balanced  judg 
ment  wherein  truth  is  found.  It  has  been  said,  then, 
that  our  literature  as  a  whole  is  not  the  outcome  of 
earnest  literary  life,  that  it  expresses  no  deeply  seated 
national  sentiment,  that  it  has  been  inspired  by  no 
great  occasions  moving  the  national  heart,  that  it 
came  in  answer  to  no  call,  but  is  the  result  of  a  "  Go 
to,  let  us  make  a  literature ;  "  and  that  its  garb,  in 
the  absence  of  a  national  costume,  is  a  copy  of  foreign 
fashion-plates,  —  a  study  of  old  clothes  ! 1 
1  See  W.  J.  Stillman  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1891,  689,  691. 


462     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

The  grain  of  truth  in  this  sweeping  judgment  is  no 
doubt  this,  —  that  our  literature  lacks  sincerity ;  and 
if  so,  then  it  is  you  and  I  and  such  as  we  who  must 
bring  about  a  different  state  of  things.  A  genuine 
literature  expresses  the  genuine  feelings  of  the  people 
from  whom  it  springs.  It  is  sincere ;  it  has  a  purpose, 
and  it  is  subject  to  verification. 

We  have,  or  are  soon  to  have,  a  library  ample  for 
all  reasonable  uses.  To  the  wisdom  of  the  past  it  will 
add  the  wisdom  of  the  present.  What  should  we 
learn  from  it  ?  Perhaps,  in  this  day  of  unrest,  of  un 
settled  opinions  and  uncertain  looking  forward  into 
the  future,  we  desire  most  of  all  to  know  how  life, 
with  its  problems  which  perplex  us  or  strike  us  in  a 
certain  way,  has  struck  another  wiser  than  we  are.  If 
he  has  written  a  sincere  book,  we  should  be  in  a  fair 
way  to  know.  It  may  be  history,  epic,  drama,  poetry, 
or  song;  no  matter. which,  provided  the  thought  and 
its  expression  be  sincere.  Sincerity  in  a  book  or  work 
of  art  is  no  less  admirable  than  in  a  living  soul,  and 
it  is  no  less  rare,  —  absolute  sincerity,  no  concealment 
of  essential  thought,  no  posing  for  effect,  no  words  for 
rhetoric.  Therefore  for  my  own  welfare  I  shall  read 
only  sincere  books ;  and  so  ought  those  from  whom 
may  be  expected  the  future  literature  of  America; 
and  so  ought  those  whose  lives  will  go  to  form  the 
national  life  and  character,  out  of  which  that  litera 
ture  —  if  we  are  to  have  one  worthy  of  the  name  — 
must  spring.  My  "Hundred  Best  Books,"  other 
things  being  equal,  would  be  the  hundred  most  sin 
cere  books. 

Now  that  the  people  are  the  governing  force,  and 
are  more  and  more  shaping  public  sentiment  on  a 
great  variety  of  subjects,  they  should  not  only  be  sin- 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     463 

cere,  but  well  and  accurately  informed.  Our  educa 
tion,  politics,  and  literature  within  the  last  generation 
have  been  somewhat  sentimental  and  sensational,  and 
with  this  result,  —  that  our  best  thoughts  and  our 
best  books  are  lacking  in  accuracy ;  and  accuracy,  it 
must  not  be  forgotten,  is  required  of  a  song  as  much 
as  of  the  multiplication  table.  There  are  books  — 
such  as  Homer,  for  example  —  which  tell  us  in  the 
most  splendid  poetry,  but  none  the  less  accurately 
because  in  poetry,  how  people  lived  and  what  they 
thought  and  how  they  felt  three  hundred  or  three 
thousand  years  ago  ;  and  there  are  others,  well  enough 
as  poetry,  which  place  such  matters  in  a  false  or  inac 
curate  light,  and  should  therefore  be  avoided.  A  little 
exercise  of  the  critical  faculty  and  of  common  sense 
will  enable  us  to  say  what  books  are  sincere  and  ac 
curate.  So  I  would  select  for  my  reading  accurate 
books,  as  accurate  and  as  sincere  as  a  dictionary.  I 
know  some  very  wise  people  who  use  books  as  they 
use  dictionaries,  and  why  not  ?  Your  library,  in  mul- 
tifariousness  and  completeness  of  knowledge,  will  be 
not  unlike  a  dictionary ;  and  that  is  one  advantage 
which  a  public  library  has  over  a  private  collection. 
From  sheer  necessity  we  must  select  from  the  great 
mass  of  books  those  most  to  our  purpose.  Why  not 
select  such  parts  of  each?  We  go  to  a  dictionary 
with  set  and  definite  purpose  to  find  accurate,  sincere 
answers  in  respect  to  some  particular  word,  —  not  ten 
words  or  twenty  words,  at  the  same  time.  What 
would  be  more  rational  than  to  use  other  books  —  as 
histories,  poems,  or  songs  —  in  the  same  way  ?  There 
is  high  authority  for  something  like  this.  I  once  saw 
a  course  of  study  drawn  up  by  Rufus  Choate  for  a 
law  student.  It  contained  few  entire  books,  but  parts 


464     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

of  some  volumes,  and  even  a  single  chapter  of  others. 
I  am  sure  that  I  shall  not  be  understood  as  recom 
mending  reading  without  a  well-considered  plan.  I 
am  far  from  that,  and  so  was  Mr.  Choate.  Formerly 
at  the  Dane  Law  School  at  Cambridge  a  course  of 
legal  study  embraced  a  long  list  of  books ;  now  it  is 
a  list  of  topics  to  be  studied  in  all  the  sources  of  in 
formation.1  Indeed,  this  method  of  reading,  so  far 
from  being  desultory,  is  particular  and  close,  and 
valuable  in  its  results ;  and  quite  as  much  so  in  the 
previous  preparation  it  implies  by  way  of  self-exam 
ination.  No  one,  unless  he  is  indolent,  goes  to  a  dic 
tionary  until  he  has  exhausted  the  resources  of  his 
own  memory ;  and  so  no  one  should  read  a  book  with 
out  first  asking,  What  do  I  desire  to  know  on  a  given 
subject,  and  what  do  I  already  know  ?  There  is  no 
book  to  which  this  may  not  be  applied ;  nor  is  there 
any  way  save  by  this  directness  of  aim  and  sureness 
of  purpose  by  which  we  can  come  into  direct  com 
munication  with  the  great  souls  among  the  dead. 

I  think  this  must  be  the  true  use  of  books,  because 
it  brings  to  pass  the  purpose  of  their  writers,  —  of 
those  sincere  writers  who  have  something  to  say.  It 
also  brings  to  pass  another  thing  of  scarcely  less 
value.  It  teaches  facility  of  access  to  them.  One 
would  hardly  say  that  it  costs  as  much  to  get  at  the 
thoughts  of  a  great  mind  as  it  did  to  produce  them ; 
but  it  would  not  be  altogether  absurd  to  say  some 
thing  like  that.  How  many  lives  have  been  given  to 
the  study  of  Homer ;  what  generations  of  men  have 
been  sounding  the  depth  of  Shakespeare's  thought, 
and  how  many  ages  will  pass  before  the  depth  will 
be  reached !  No  one  ever  partially  penetrated  the 

1  H.  B.  Adams's  Life  and  Writings  ofJared  Sparks,  ii.  364. 


NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS     465 

recesses  of  Shakespeare's  mind  without  acquiring 
something  of  his  penetration ;  no  one  ever  ascended 
the  height  which  Milton  trod  without  becoming  suf 
fused  with  the  glory  which  rested  upon  his  head. 

If  one  object  of  reading  is  to  bring  ourselves  into 
relations  with  minds  broader  and  richer  than  our  own, 
another  is  to  bring  ourselves  into  harmony  with  man 
kind,  or  at  least  our  countrymen,  with  whom  we  have 
agreed  to  live  and  to  work  for  the  perfection  and 
defense  of  democratic  institutions,  and  to  refute  Cole 
ridge  by  showing  that  democracy  can  think,  —  think 
broadly,  deeply,  and  wisely ;  that  it  can  feel  and  as 
pire,  delight  in  visions  of  glory,  see  all  that  poets 
have  seen,  and  imagine  and  express  all  that  artists 
have  conceived  or  wrought  by  form  or  color. 

To  this  end  I  would  read  those  books  which  are  not 
only  sincere  and  accurate,  but  those  which  treat  sub 
jects  with  breadth  of  view.  At  best  our  thoughts  are 
cramped,  narrow,  and  prejudiced,  and  we  should  court 
familiarity  with  opposite  qualities  and  tendencies. 

I  have  selected  from  the  many  desirable  qualities 
of  books  those  which  appertain  to  greatness  of  char 
acter,  without  which  we  cannot  become  a  people  great 
in  affairs,  nor  learned  in  the  sciences,  nor  cultured  in 
the  arts  ;  but  with  these  qualities,  united  to  the  genius 
of  the  English  race,  and  to  what  our  Celtic  brethren 
contribute  to  the  common  stock,  a  free,  equal,  edu 
cated,  and  cultured  people,  we  may  revive  the  glories 
of  the  best  ages. 

The  people  have  come  to  the  front ;  and  who  are 
the  people?  Certainly  not  alone  the  ignorant,  the 
debased,  and  the  spoilers.  They  include  all  the  wise, 
the  cultured,  and  the  righteous  as  well.  The  real 
democracy,  thus  made  up,  must  prove  its  right  to  stay 


466     NEW  ENGLAND  LIFE  AND  LETTERS 

at  the  front.  Not  less  than  kings  and  hierarchies 
and  aristocracies  in  the  past,  we  in  the  present  are  on 
trial.  If  we  allow  any  great  interest  of  humanity  to 
fail,  —  if  in  our  hands  religion,  science,  art,  or  litera 
ture  fall  into  decadence,  —  we  must  give  way  to  those 
who  can  save  them ;  because  human  nature  is  stronger 
than  democracy,  and  so  is  religion,  and  so  are  those 
indestructible,  unconquerable  principles  by  which  the 
race  aspires  and  achieves. 

But  there  will  be  no  failure,  though  not  unlikely 
there  will  be  some  confusion  until  democracy  —  its 
old  leaders  gone  —  learns  to  lead  itself.  To  this  end 
literature  must  be  popularized.  What  has  been  writ 
ten  for  the  few  must  be  rewritten  for  the  many ;  it 
must  be  disseminated.  Mr.  Brooks  has  done  his  part ; 
we  must  do  ours. 

These  are  my  last  words.  They  were  written  at 
the  midnight  hour  and  laid  aside  for  the  morning; 
and  when  the  morning  came  Mr.  Brooks  was  dead. 
Imperfect  and  inadequate  as  they  are,  I  cannot 
change  them.  They  and  the  subject  of  them  are  now 
before  another  tribunal.  That  which  concerns  us 
remains,  with  day  of  grace.  When  the  shadow  of  the 
great  mystery  falls  upon  us,  as  it  has  fallen  upon  our 
friend,  may  there  rise  up  as  great  a  cloud  of  witnesses 
who  will  say  of  us,  as  we  say  of  him,  "  He  has  done 
his  part"! 


IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE  IN  PUB 
LIC  LIBRARIES 

ADDRESS  AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF  THE  WOODS  MEMORIAL  LIBRARY 
BUILDING,  BARRE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  DECEMBER  30,  1887 


ADDRESS 

AT  THE  DEDICATION  OF    THE  WOODS   LIBRARY, 
BARRE 


His  Excellency  has  said  that  he  came  up  here  from 
the  capital  to-day  at  some  personal  inconvenience,  by 
which  he  means,  as  I  conjecture,  that  he  is  busy  just 
now  in  writing  the  message  which  he  will  deliver  to 
the  General  Court  next  Wednesday,  when  he  enters 
upon  his  second  term  of  office  as  Governor  of  the 
Commonwealth.  We  all  read  His  Excellency's  inau 
gural  address  last  year,  and  remember  the  commen 
dations  it  received  from  all  parties ;  and  so  we  have 
high  expectations  regarding  what  he  may  say  next 
week.  But  when  we  consider  that  about  the  only 
things  the  Congress  of  the  United  States  and  the  leg 
islature  of  Massachusetts  do  not  attend  to,  are  pre 
cisely  those  matters  which  the  President  and  the  gov 
ernor,  each  in  his  jurisdiction,  seriously  urges  upon 
their  attention,  it  raises  a  question  whether  the  gov 
ernor  could  not  use  his  time  more  profitably  to  the 
people,  if,  instead  of  bestowing  it  on  a  message,  he 
devoted  that  portion  of  it  which  a  message  costs  to 
making  throughout  the  Commonwealth  just  such  prac 
tical,  common-sense  talks  as  he  has  given  us  to-day,  to 
which  everybody  eagerly  listened  and  will  doubtless 
give  heed ;  and  if  so,  Barre,  already  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  towns,  will  become  still  more  interesting 


470  IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE 

and  better  qualified  to  take  up  and  carry  forward  the 
civilization  she  has  received  from  wise  and  cultured 
ancestors. 

We  have  heard  with  instruction  and  pleasure  the 
most  excellent  address  of  Judge  Aldrich,  in  which  he 
has  treated  such  topics  as  the  occasion  suggests,  with 
a  fullness  and  precision  which  leave  nothing  to  be 
added.  I  see  no  reason,  therefore,  why  I  should  go 
over  the  same  ground.  Let  me,  rather,  take  up  the 
pregnant  suggestion  which  fell  from  the  lips  of  the 
president  of  your  Association  in  his  opening  address. 
He  said  in  substance  that  there  are  scattered  through 
out  the  country  perhaps  hundreds  of  people,  natives 
of  Barre,  who  in  their  distant  homes  still  hold  the 
place  of  their  birth  in  affectionate  remembrance. 
This  is  as  it  should  be ;  for,  next  to  God  and  our  pa 
rents,  we  are  most  indebted  to  the  place  where  we 
were  born  for  that  which  goes  to  make  up  ourselves, 
and  which,  of  however  little  account  it  may  be  to 
others,  is  everything  to  us,  and  on  no  account  to  be 
exchanged  with  another,  however  gifted  in  mind,  in 
person,  or  in  fortune.  For  had  the  eyes  of  those  who 
are  Barre-born  first  opened  to  the  light  of  heaven  in 
some  other  place ;  had  they  elsewhere  first  beheld  the 
phenomena  of  nature,  either  in  their  ceaseless  round 
or  in  those  sudden  and  occasional  manifestations 
which  impress  us  deeply  in  tender  years,  —  they 
would  have  been  in  some  respects  different  from  what 
they  now  are ;  and  something  less,  unless  you  have 
proved  more  insensible  than  1  believe  you  have  been, 
to  the  influences  of  hills  and  valleys  not  often  sur 
passed  in  their  beauty  ;  or  to  air  than  which  none  is 
purer ;  or  to  skies  than  which  none  are  fairer. 

Yes ;  all  these  influences  have  entered  into  the  life 


IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE  471 

and  character  —  into  body,  soul,  and  mind  —  of  all 
born  here,  moulding,  transforming,  and  bifilding  up 
what  we  call  character,  not  only  in  individuals,  but  in 
society  as  well,  —  that  which  marks  the  New  Eng- 
lander  wherever  he  goes,  and  has  given  a  name  to 
New  England  towns  in  all  generations. 

Now,  unless  I  misconceive,  or  greatly  overestimate 
the  nature  and  power  of  this  influence  of  locality  upon 
us  in  the  formative  period  of  life,  you  natives  of  Barre 
are  greatly  indebted  to  the  place  of  your  birth.  To 
other  towns,  to  which  some  of  you  have  gone  in  quest 
of  fortune,  you  may  be  indebted  for  fortune,  for 
honors,  public  or  social ;  but  to  Barre  you  are  in 
debted  for  no  inconsiderable  part  of  those  qualities 
which,  if  you  lacked,  you  would  willingly  purchase  at 
great  price. 

One  of  those  whose  good  fortune  it  was  to  have 
been  born  here  in  Barre ;  one  who  acquired  here  those 
qualities  of  which  I  have  spoken,  and  who,  carrying 
them  with  him  into  a  wider  field  of  action,  in  due  time 
became  a  member  of  a  great  commercial  house  known 
in  two  hemispheres  for  the  prompt  discharge  of  all  its 
obligations  and  for  fair  dealing  with  all  its  customers, 
to-day  returns  bearing  gifts.  Partaking  the  honorable 
sentiments  of  his  house,  and  moved  by  a  sense  of  the 
obligations  to  which  I  have  referred,  this  gentleman 
has,  in  my  judgment,  taken  a  most  excellent  way  of 
recognizing  his  duty  to  the  place  where  he  was  born 
and  in  which  he  was  favored  by  those  influences  which 
did  so  much  to  form  his  character  and  guide  his  life. 
He  has  established  a  free  public  library  for  his  native 
town.  Let  us  consider  what  that  imports. 

Had  Mr.  Woods  so  chosen,  instead  of  establishing 
a  library,  he  might  have  created  a  fund  the  income  of 


472  IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE 

which  should  be  devoted  for  all  time  to  the  purchase 
of  books  to  be  distributed  among  such  families,  or  in 
dividuals,  as  found  it  impracticable  or  inconvenient 
to  purchase  books  for  themselves.  In  some  respects 
such  a  plan  would  be  quite  as  economical  and  would 
result  in  a  dissemination  of  literature  quite  as  wide  as 
could  be  obtained  through  the  instrumentality  of  a 
library.  But  it  would  not  be  a  public  library,  which 
possesses  manifest  advantages  over  such  a  plan  ;  and 
the  advantage  would  be  even  greater,  were  Mr. 
Woods 's  fund  ample  to  furnish,  for  all  time,  the  books 
needed  for  the  nicest  research  or  to  gratify  the  most 
cultured  taste  in  any  department  in  learning. 

What  is  a  public  library  ?  It  is  an  organization  the 
power  and  influence  of  which  far  transcend  the  power 
and  influence  of  all  the  separate  volumes  which  com 
pose  it,  just  as  the  power  and  influence  of  a  Christian 
church,  for  example,  are  more  than  the  pious  and  de 
voted  lives  of  its  members.  It  has  organized  life.  It 
has  corporate  existence.  It  lives  and  breathes ;  has 
sentiency  and  purposes.  It  may  be  immortal,  and 
each  year  added  to  its  life  adds  to  its  power.  Mr. 
Woods  may  feel  well  assured  that,  so  long  as  govern 
ments  endure  and  municipal  bodies  perform  their 
functions,  from  yonder  library,  established  by  his 
beneficence,  will  proceed  influences  which  will  promote 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  community  of  which  Barre 
is  made  up,  arouse  the  aspirations  of  individuals,  and 
afford  them  the  means  for  attaining  higher,  richer,  and 
happier  lives  ;  and  all  this,  not  for  one  generation 
alone,  but  for  unending  generations.  Such  is  the  en 
viable  power  of  wealth  when  used  with  intelligence 
and  sanctified  by  right  disposition. 

And  now  a  few  words  in  regard  to  its  adimnistra- 


IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE  473 

tion.  I  hope  that  everywhere  in  our  country,  and  so 
here,  will  be  recognized  this  fact  —  that  all  our  insti 
tutions,  in  order  to  bring  about  these  most  valuable 
results  in  moulding  the  character  and  habits  of  the 
people,  must  substantially  represent  the  public  sense 
of  the  communities  in  which  they  are  established. 
Better  far  to  endure  the  consequence  of  some  mistakes 
than  have  it  otherwise.  Like  our  schools,  our  churches, 
our  politics,  and  our  social  life,  so  our  libraries  should 
find  their  countenance  and  support  in  the  life  of  the 
people.  They  must  be  trusted,  and  we  must  speedily 
get  rid  of  the  notion  that  they  cannot  carry  on  the 
government.  Within  a  few  years  the  people  have 
come  to  the  front,  and  they  have  come  to  stay  and  to 
govern.  And  in  the  long  run  they  will  govern  wisely ; 
but  by  the  people,  I  mean  the  whole  people ;  not  alone 
those  who  are  ignorant,  debased,  or  vicious ;  but  also 
the  wise,  the  prosperous,  and  the  well-disposed. 

There  is  another  subject  on  which  I  wish  to  say 
something.  The  orator  of  the  day  has  spoken  of  the 
reading  of  fiction,  a  habit  now  so  much  in  vogue ;  and 
I  wish  that  I  may  speak  with  discrimination  and  pre 
cision,  so  as  to  convey  my  exact  ideas  on  that  subject. 
I  have  great  faith  in  imaginative  literature,  when  pro 
perly  chosen,  to  refine  and  elevate.  I  do  not,  I  trust, 
undervalue  science,  history,  or  philosophy ;  but,  owing 
to  the  circumstances  of  the  planting  of  New  England, 
and  the  subsequent  life  therein,  its  people  are  fairly 
"  up,"  as  we  may  say,  in  those  departments  of  human 
thought.  But  there  is  a  vast  realm  which  lies  just 
below  the  range  of  those  feelings  by  which  we  may 
commune  with  God,  and  just  above  the  world  of  sense, 
—  I  mean  the  world  of  the  imagination,  —  into  which, 
as  a  people,  we  have  never  very  fully  entered,  either 


474  IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE 

by  our  literature  or  by  our  daily  life.  The  result  has 
been  that  our  notions  in  respect  to  the  beautiful, 
either  in  art  or  in  literature,  are  very  crude,  and  our 
attempts  to  realize  them  very  unsatisfactory.  Now, 
our  progress  in  this  ought  to  keep  pace  with  our  un 
deniable  progress  in  the  practical  arts,  in  science,  in 
invention,  and  in  the  application  of  politics  to  affairs. 
Is  there  any  good  reason  why  it  should  not  ?  We  are 
sprung  from  a  race  which  has  wrought  great  things, 
—  nor  is  there  any  greater  in  the  realm  of  the  imagi 
nation  ;  a  race  which  calls  Chaucer  and  Spenser  and 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  its  own.  And  if  we  are  in 
danger  of  falling  behind  our  kindred  in  the  old  home  ; 
and,  especially,  if  we  are  in  danger  of  falling  into 
materialism  and  of  thinking  too  exclusively,  "  What 
shall  we  eat,  or  what  shall  we  drink,  or  wherewithal 
shall  we  be  clothed,"  then  it  is  time  to  call  a  halt  in 
this  headlong  race  for  material  things,  and  give  more 
attention  to  those  matters  which  serve  to  bring  on  the 
life  which  lives  by  the  spirit.  And  we  shall  do  this, 
unless  we  are  willing  to  see  the  glories  of  our  ances 
tors  and  of  our  kindred  beyond  the  sea  fade  and  go 
out  on  New  England  soil. 

Were  it  in  my  power,  therefore,  I  would  institute 
such  a  system  of  education,  both  public  and  private, 
as  would  develop  and  bring  into  their  legitimate  use 
those  powers  which  serve  to  raise  us  above,  so  far 
above,  the  material  world  that  we  may  understand 
and  enjoy  the  world  of  the  imagination.  And  in 
such  a  system  a  free  public  library  would  hold  an 
important  place.  Within  its  walls  ought  to  be  found, 
not  only  alcoves  for  history  and  science  and  philoso 
phy  ;  not  only  for  forms  of  the  literature  in  which 
Shakespeare  and  Milton  reign  supreme,  but  also  for 


IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE  475 

the  great  romancers  and  novelists,  who  have  explored 
the  recesses  of  human  nature,  made  us  familiar  with 
life,  and  added  to  the  sum  of  human  happiness  by 
leading  us  into  the  fields  of  imagination.  I  would, 
therefore,  have  libraries  so  administered,  and  their 
funds  so  applied,  that  while  they  contribute  to  the 
dissemination  of  knowledge,  they  should  at  the  same 
time  open  the  fountains  of  imaginative  literature 
which  seem  to  be  in  some  danger  of  drying  up  among 
us. 

I  am  the  more  concerned  about  this  when  I  con 
sider  that  imaginative  literature  is  the  only  province 
of  art  into  which  the  circumstances  of  life  on  this  side 
of  the  Atlantic  permit  us  to  enter  and  to  live  in  that 
full  and  free  intercourse  which  makes  it  a  productive 
power.  The  sea  rolls  between  us  and  those  great 
masterpieces  of  plastic  and  pictorial  art  which  are 
the  delight  of  all  who  behold  them  and  the  despair  of 
all  who  attempt  to  reproduce  their  essential  qualities. 
But  though  none  of  us  shall  ever  behold  the  glories 
of  the  Temple,  and  but  few  the  remains  of  the  Par 
thenon  or  the  great  cathedrals  or  galleries  of  Europe* 
which  have  done  so  much  to  keep  alive  the  spirit  of 
art  among  the  people  of  the  old  world,  yet  we,  as  well 
as  they,  may  hear,  if  we  will,  the  songs  of  the  Hebrew 
poet  and  the  sublime  epic  of  Homer  and  the  trage 
dies  of  the  great  dramatists.  Let  us  gather  them, 
then,  into  yonder  hall,  with  the  best  which  the  world 
has  since  produced  of  imaginative  literature,  so  that 
all  who  enter  it  in  this  or  in  succeeding  ages  may 
come  in  contact  with  the  richest  thought  and  the  most 
refined  and  elevated  feeling  of  those  great  men  who, 
in  all  ages,  have  lived  in  the  spirit  and  wrought  by 
its  power. 


476  IMAGINATIVE  LITERATURE 

Ladies  and  gentlemen,  Mr.  Woods  has  conferred 
a  great  benefit  on  your  town.  This  he  has  done  in 
discharge  of  the  debt  he  incurred  by  being  born  in 
a  place  singularly  favored  by  nature,  and  reared  in  a 
community  of  noble  men  and  women  who  have  given 
it  an  enviable  fame.  See  to  it  that  in  the  discharge 
of  a  like  obligation,  you  so  preserve  and  administer 
the  trust  committed  to  you,  that  the  generations  to 
come  shall  rise  up  and  bless  your  names  as  well  as 
his. 


fltbe  tttati&e  p«# 

CAMBRIDGE,  MASSACHUSETTS,  U.  S.  A. 

•LBCTROTYPBD  AND  PRINTED  BY 

H.  O.  HOUGHTON  AND  CO. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


RE- 


LOAN  DE*¥, 


RENEWALS  ONLY— TEL.  N^  642-3405 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  dat^  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  whfiiji  renewed. 
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' 


i 


:.;n  2 


REC'D  LD 


MRY  :     1373  7 


W 


HEED  en 


'^-1  PI*  10 


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IEC.CIR.WB  22 '78 


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